









LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap.,/ £7 Copyright No... 

~§GA‘5»tA<r2. 


Shell 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 







THE MONEY MARKET 


By E. F. BENSON 
Author of 44 Dodo,” etc. 


















































“You have nothing then to say to me?” he asked. 

Page 206. 



THE 

MONEY MARKET 


BY 

E. F* BENSON 

Author of “Limitations,” “Dodo,” “The Vintage,” etc. 
“WEALTH MAKETH MANY FRIENDS.”— Prov. xix : 4. 



|)l)ilat)elpl]ia 

DREXEL BIDDLE, Publisher 

MDCCCXCIX 
L • 




ycETb - 1 4 

0 ) 1> o < 


~T7-3 


23101 


Copyright, 1898 
by 

ANTHONY J. DREXEL BIDDLE 


ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 


nm COPSES RECEIVED- 



<b 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP. PAGE 

I. The Engagement 9 

II. Percy 2£ 

III. At Lord's 34 

IV. Lady Otterbourne's Visitor 43 

V. Abbotsworthy 58 

VI. Blanche's Difficulty 75 

VII. Parsifal 88 

VIII. Lady Otterbourne's Difficulty £05 

IX. The Broken Cast £20 

X. The Eve of the Birthday £37 

XI. The Birthday £50 

XU. The Opening of the Letter £62 

XIII. The Evening of the Birthday £68 

XTV. Sybil Decides £87 

XV. An Experiment 207 

XVI. The Meeting at the Concert 224 

XVII The Resurrection 237 

XVIII. The Song of Songs 257 



# 


The Money Market. 


CHAPTER L 
The Engagement. 

The curtain fell on tlie second act of Tristan und 
Isolde , and L,ady Stoakley, who had been regarding 
the stage with a rigid and unmeaning eye, and sit- 
ting very upright, leaned back in her chair in the 
corner of the box, and, opening her fan, began to 
wave it to and fro, less with the object of cooling 
herself — for it was a June night with a temperature 
like that of midwinter in the polar regions — than 
of occupying her hands; indeed, she shivered as she 
fanned herself. 

“I wish I had a million pounds,” she said at 
length to her companion, in a rather fretful voice, 
like a child who is not allowed a particular toy. 

Mrs. Montgomery did not cease examining the 
house through her opera glasses, but she sighed 
sympathetically. 

“Yes, dear, we all wish that,” she said, without 
putting down her glasses, “and if we had a million 

9 


10 


The Money Market . 

pounds each we should all wish we had another. 
Though I am not grasping, not really grasping 
I mean, I never yet had a thing I liked without 
wanting another of the same, and I should think 
that would be particularly the case with a million 
pounds. Those large round sums must be so satis- 
factory. Just like big pearls.” 

“Nonsense, a million is enough for anybody. 
It is even enough for two,” said Lady Stoakley, 
so sharply that Mrs. Montgomery put down her 
glasses. 

“You are thinking of Percy Gerard? ” she asked. 
“Of course I am. So are you. We all are. 
It is supposed to be vulgar to desire or to envy 
wealth. That is one of those absurd delusions 
which are confined to the wealthy. In my opinion, 
it is infinitely more vulgar to pretend not to desire 
it, besides which no one will believe that one does 
not. As for the nouveaux riches , it is absurd to 
pose as despising them. Who was it who remarked 
so excellently that there was no real difference 
between them and the old poor? ” 

“I don’t know who said it. What did he say, 
in any case ? I should have thought there was all 
the difference in the world between them. ’ ’ 

“No; one seeks to get position by means of 
its wealth, the other seeks to get wealth by means 
of its position. It is quite true : there is nothing 
to choose between them.” 

Mrs. Montgomery suddenly took up her opera 


11 


The Money Market . 

glasses, as a shooter puts his gun to the shoulder 
when a bird rises, and let fly a snap-shot into a 
box opposite. She put them down again with an 
air of disappointment, as if she had missed. 

“There is something in that,” she said, “but 
there is not everything in it. Poor Lord Lanborne, 
whose blood is so blue that he always looks as if 
he was freezing, hasn’t succeeded very well. He 
was made a director of some mine, you know, desir- 
ing to get wealth, I suppose, by means of his posi- 
tion, and, being conscientious, he thought he ought 
to go out to the Rand, or Rhodesia, or Rum-ti-foo, 
or wherever it was, and see the mine. He is one 
of our more particular peers. But he fell down 
a shaft, I think they call it, and broke his leg. 
Within a fortnight the company broke too, and 
they say the fracture is compound. ’ ’ 

“ Which — his leg or the company ?” 

“Both, dear,” said Mrs. Montgomery, again seiz- 
ing her glasses. 

Lady Stoakley laughed. 

“He and his company are failures, that is all,” 
she said. “If you instance the failure to a rule, 
you reverse the rule.” 

“The nouveaux riches never fail,” murmured 
Mrs. Montgomery. “Percy Gerard will never fail. 
There he is ; he has just come into the house. 
How absurdly young he looks.” 

‘ 1 He is absurdly young,” said Lady Stoakley ; 
“ he is only twenty- four, and you see by his grand- 


12 


The Money Market . 

father’s will he doesn’t come of age till next year. 
That was so ingenious of old Mr. Gerard; it gives 
him four extra years. I wish somebody would 
give me four extra years and a million pounds. 
But why do you class him among the nouveaux 
riches f ’ ’ 

u I don’t know. I suppose because he is so rich. 
That sort of fortune can’t last long, and so it must 
be nouveau. Oh, yes, don’t correct me. I know I 
have contradicted myself. Is it true that he is 
engaged to Lady Sybil?” 

“ So her mother says,” remarked Lady Stoakley, 
acidly. 

“No doubt. Her mother would say anything. 
Now, I like Lady Otterbourne ; there is no nonsense 
about her. She kuows what she likes, and she 
says so.” 

“ She doesn’t like me,” said Lady Stoakley, in a 
meditative tone. 

“No, dear, and she says so,” remarked Mrs. 
Montgomery, signalling violently to Percy Gerard. 
“Oli, dear! there is the bell, and I wanted to 
talk to Percy. How tiresome this opera is ! It 
always begins again when one is talking, like the 
trains that always go on when one is in the 
refreshment rooms. I always wondered why she 
didn’t like you. Are you going on to Lynn Blouse 
later? Yes? Let us go together.” 

Lady Stoakley gave the last act only a scant 
attention. She thought Wagner as a whole was 


13 


The Money Market . 

ugly, and she thought this particular opera tedious 
and uumelodious. But it was a gala night, — Jean 
de Retzke was singing, princes and princesses 
and stars and garters were like the sand of 
the sea-shore for number, and it was a matter of 
course to be there. Also Mrs. Montgomery had 
distinctly been rubbing her the wrong way. She 
knew, and all London knew, why Lady Otter- 
bourne disliked her, and all London knew that 
she resented and returned the dislike with great 
frankness and no show of dissimulation. She 
had tried deliberately and purposely — so thought 
Lady Otterbourne and the world in general — to 
catch Percy Gerard for her own daughter, Blanche. 
He was desirable in every way ; she liked him ; 
she believed him pre-eminently upright and respect- 
able ; and he was enormously wealthy. Those 
who were not fond of Lady Stoakley were free to 
believe that this last qualification was the only 
essential she demanded, and, with that candour 
which delights in stating malicious things, they 
said so. But in this they erred. She liked him, 
and she liked his millions ; and she liked them each 
for their own sakes. Which she liked the best, it 
is beside the mark to enquire ; but an uncharitable 
assumption would be entirely out of place. 

Just before the curtain rose the door of the box 
opened and Lord Stoakley came in, but neither of 
the ladies took the slightest notice of him, and he 
did not appear surprised. He was a man of chronic 


14 


The Money Market . 

and extreme middle-age, equally removed from 
youth and old age ; and, as far as the memory of 
his friends served them, he had never been other- 
wise. He could as little have contemplated com- 
mitting a deliberate heroism as of committing a 
deliberate folly or making an unsafe investment. 
He had a careful little manner, and he was studi- 
ously polite to his wife. The obscurity of his pres- 
ence was really glaring, and he had to a remarkable 
extent what we may call the quality of obliviality, 
for it was next to impossible to remember that he 
was present. 

“You may not have heard the news,” he re- 
marked, as he sat down, after bowing to Mrs. Mont- 
gomery’s averted profile, “and I came here because 
I thought you would like to know it. Percy 
Gerard has just written to me, as his guardian, 
saying he intends to marry Lady Sybil Attwood. 
Of course I gave my consent, and they are engaged. 
I could not have desired a better match for him.” 

Mrs. Montgomery, having in her mind what the 
world said Lady Stoakley had planned for Blanche, 
cleared her throat delicately. But Lady Stoakley 
answered at once. 

“ My dear Jack,” she said, “ I have known it for 
months. ’ ’ 

( ‘ But I only received the note after dinner, dear 
Mabel,” he said ; “so you cannot have known it so 
long, if you will pardon my contradicting you. 
In fact, you cannot have known it at all. Percy, 


The Money Market . 15 

you see, had to get my consent, which I telegraphed 
to him half an hour ago.” 

“I have known it was certain, I meant,’ ’ said 
she ; “ it has been in the air.” 

“It has reached ground,” he said; “Percy is 
coming to see me to-morrow. There will be a 
great deal of business to go through and settle- 
ments to make. But, indeed, I am not yet quite 
sure whether, under his grandfather’s will, he may 
marry until his twenty-fifth birthday.” 

“You will find it difficult to persuade Lady 
Otterbourne of that,” remarked Mrs. Montgomery. 
“ When is he twenty-five ? ” 

“In September; he will only have to wait a 
few months. Indeed, the marriage could hardly 
take place before.” 

“Oh, he is a good young man, and Lady Otter- 
bourne knows it,” said Lady Stoakley, viciously. 
“She will rest on her oars awhile now. Really, 
for a middle-aged woman, her exertions have been 
immense.” 

Mrs. Montgomery turned to watch the progress 
of the opera, and abstained from smiling. Poor 
dear Mabel really gave herself away dreadfully 
sometimes. For a woman of forty to talk about 
other people being middle-aged was more than a 
trifle dangerous, and Mrs. Montgomery reflected 
with thankfulness that she herself was only thirty- 
nine and passed for thirty-five at the most, and 
had a birthday very conscientiously and with- 


16 The Money Market . 

out any attempt at concealment every eighteen 
months. 

Lady Stoakley was probably to be classed as a 
selfish woman, but she certainly had the maternal 
instinct. She had worked and slaved on her 
daughter’s account, and she was willing to go on 
doing so as long as she could stand. She had 
taken her to balls and u At Homes ” and concerts 
with the most devoted regularity, and there was 
no denying that the engagement of Percy Gerard 
to somebody else was a blow. How Blanche 
herself would take it she could not guess, but it 
was always impossible to guess how Blanche 
would take anything. She was a young lady with 
a great gift of giving surprises to those who knew 
her best, and her mother had long ceased to be 
surprised at her except when she behaved in a 
way that was not surprising. Certainly she had 
been fond of Percy ; and, Lord Stoakley being his 
guardian, it had been natural for him to be often 
at the house. Indeed, as long as he had been at 
school he had spent his holidays there, and the 
two in those days had been the most excellent 
friends. Nor had the boy-and-girl intimacy ever 
ceased ; but what Lady Stoakley did not know 
was whether it had ripened in a manner corre- 
sponding to their years. Blanche was on somewhat 
intimate terms with a rather large number of 
eligible and ineligible young men, and it was 
impossible for any one but herself to know how 


17 


The Money Market . 

she ranked them in her affection, but her mother 
guessed that she put Percy rather high. Still, as 
long as she did not put him in a class by himself 
there was no harm done, only her labour had been 
wasted. Most girls in a similar case, howeve^ 
would, if they had been at all in love with a man 
who was engaged to some one else, give no sign of 
any sort or kind, but present a stony, non-commit- 
ting silence ; and thus it was well on the cards that 
Blanche would tell her all about it. 

To-night she was not at the opera, having pleaded 
fatigue ; and Lady Stoakley determined not to go to 
her supper-party at Lynn House, but return home 
and give the news to her daughter. In fact, it was 
hardly worth while waiting for the end, and about 
the middle of the Liebestod she rose with a rustle. 

“ I think I shall go home. The noise is deafen- 
ing : it is like Victoria Station,” she said to Mrs. 
Montgomery. “ Make my excuses to the Seymours, 
will you? I am rather tired, and I want to see how 
Blanche is. She has not been well all day.” 

Blanche had not yet gone to bed when Lady 
Stoakley reached home, and seemed surprised to 
see her mother so soon. 

“You are early,” she said, “and where is father? 
I thought he went to the opera.” 

Lady Stoakley thought a moment. 

“ Yes, he left the opera with me,” she said ; “but 
I can’t remember. Oh, yes, I dropped him at his 
club.” 

‘2 


18 


The Money Market . 

Blanche made no reply, and Lady Stoakley went 
straight to the point 

“I have heard some new T S to-night/ ’ she said. 
“ Percy Gerard is engaged to be married.” 

“To whom? Lady Sybil, I suppose.” 

“ Yes. Is it not a surprise to you ?” 

Blanche raised her eyebrows, which were very 
pretty and delicately stencilled. 

“ Oh, no ! Percy told me about his feelings for 
Sybil himself long ago. It was a surprise to me 
then, I grant ; but I have got used to it. He and 
I are going to be brother and sister. I think it 
will be charming. I haven’t got any brothers, 
and he hasn’t got any sisters. Isn’t that con- 
venient ?’ ’ 

Lady Stoakley looked at her daughter impa- 
tiently. This might mean nothing or it might 
mean a good deal. 

Blanche was lying back in a low chair, and her 
hands were clasped behind her head. She was 
dressed in white, and her face, nearly as white as 
her dress, was cut out like a faultless cameo against 
the dark background of her chair. Her light hair 
grew low on her forehead, and surmounted a broad 
oval face, Greek in line, but with a firmness of 
mouth and chin which would perhaps have seemed 
more in place on the face of a handsome boy. She 
lounged rather than sat, and one leg was crossed 
over the other, and there was so absolute a natural- 
ness in her position that one almost forgot how un- 


The Money Market , 19 

becoming it was. She looked blatantly indifferent 
to the news. 

“Decidedly girls are puzzles to their mothers,” 
thought Lady Stoakley. Then aloud : 

“ What do you mean. Blanche?” 

The girl sat up. 

“ Dear mother, 1 happen to mean just precisely 
what I say. I love Percy — I mean it — and he loves 
me. We are to be brother and sister. Oh dear, no, 
we are not what is called in love with each other, 
we simply love each other. Oh ! I shall be L,ady 
Sybil’s sister-in-law in that case ; well, we must 
take the good with the bad. I don’t like her ; I 
told Percy so. Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I 
felt I had to ; you see, I have always told him 
everything.” 

“What did he say to that?” 

“ He said I lost a great deal by not liking her,” 
said Blanche; “but he is in love with her, you 
see. I suppose that makes a difference.” 

“ Probably. And she certainly has a great charm 
for many people. He was at the opera to-night 
with them.” 

“ Yes, he told me he was going. Poor Percy !” 

Lady Stoakley looked up. 

“Why that?” 

“Oh, I don’t know; but I have a sort of idea 
that — that — no, I won’t say it. Yet, why shouldn’t 
I ? L,et me put it as a riddle. What is Tady Otter- 
bourne fondest of?” 


20 The Money Market . 

“ Diamonds,” said Lady Stoakley, promptly and 
venomously. 

“ Exactly. She has got a diamond for Lady 
Sybil in Percy. Will he make her an allowance, 
do you suppose? She is very poor, isn’t she?” 

“ Where she gets her money from, I don’t know,” 
said Lady Stoakley. 

u Well, she has got to Golconda now,” remarked 
Blanche. “And I think that Lady Sybil is fond 
of Golconda, too. No doubt she is in love with 
Percy, but I can’t help thinking that she would 
never have allowed herself to if he had been poor. 
Therefore, Poor Percy !” 

Lady Stoakley always drank a cup of hot water 
in the evening to take away the effects of an un- 
healthily spent day, and she was sipping it medi- 
tatively. 

“You didn’t happen to say ‘ Poor Percy ’ to him, 
did you?” 

Blanche got out of her chair, and rose slowly to 
her tall and slender height. 

“No. The dear boy was so happy, and he so 
evidently wanted me to consider him the most 
enviable of mortals. Oh ! mother, I asked him to 
lunch to-morrow, and he and I are going to Lord’s 
afterwards. Lady Sybil is to be there, and we are 
all going to be brothers and sisters. I hope I shan’t 
find it very difficult to be Sybil’s sister. But it 
wasn’t my plan ; it was Percy’s.” 


CHAPTER II. 

Percy* 

PERCY Gerard liad the rare distinction of being 
considered, for quite six weeks of that Iyondon 
season, one of the legitimate subjects of conver- 
sation. He even ousted the weather from its 
immemorial position of premier topic, although 
the arctic character of June that year was really 
remarkable. How much the distinction is worth, 
there may be two opinions ; of the rarity of it there 
can be but one, for six weeks is an immense time, 
since each season is a year, and, at the pace Ton- 
don goes, each year a lifetime. To those who 
knew his history — and there were few who did not 
— he appeared to be a really picturesque figure, and 
when an eminently dull and ugly age labels a figure 
picturesque, there can be no doubt that such a one 
is certainly not dull and ugly. To take the lowest 
view of him, he was assuredly more intelligent 
than the greater part of his world, and much more 
good-looking. His intelligence was shown in many 
ways : in the first place, though he had known that 
there would never be the slightest need for him, 
from a monetary point of view, to stir a finger or 
think a thought, he had worked hard enough to 
get an appointment in the Foreign Office ; and in 

21 


22 


The Money Market . 

the second, he was well aware that, though to be 
very rich is quite sufficient passport to enable any 
one to make his way, not only unhindered but also 
welcome, into the most charmed of circles, there is 
another standard possible, and that a very rich man 
may still be exceedingly incomplete in every other 
way. He realised, also, that, though a lazy self- 
sufficiency is widely considered to be the suffi- 
cient social equipment for a rich man, the same 
quality is in itself a poisonous thing ; and he was 
modest, not from any sense of the value of the 
commodity, but from native propensity. For a 
rich and handsome young man to be modest he 
found to be considered in the minds of certain peo- 
ple a pose, but he did not trouble himself much 
about what conclusions such minds might choose 
to draw. Further, he had developed in him a very 
strong sense of drama ; he could not help formu- 
lating to himself how other people struck him, and, 
as a corollary to this, how he struck himself. He 
was thus studiously critical of his own behaviour. 

His connections and history were certainly de- 
serving of a passing consideration. His grand- 
father, from whom he inherited his great wealth, 
had been in business. From this business he re- 
tired early with a small fortune, but when he died 
he was found to be enormously wealthy. The will 
was proved, but no more, as far as was known, was 
forthcoming about the manner in which he obtained 
his wealth. He had lived a quiet town-life till he 


23 


The Money Market . 

was sixty years old, when he had suddenly bought 
the country house of the Marquis of Abbotsworthy, 
an enormous eighteenth century building of red 
brick, added to a castellated barrack of the six- 
teenth century, with acres of greenhouse, a huge 
estate, and a ghost. Here he had moved with his 
son and daughter-in-law and Percy, who was then 
a baby ; and here he spent his remaining years, 
never again setting foot in London. The last nine 
years of his life, indeed, he devoted to two pur- 
suits. From the first of April every year till the 
last day of September, he spent his whole time on 
the river Itchen fishing for trout ; and on the 1st 
of October he began to play picquet, and played it 
till the last day of March. He never had his 
house empty, and during the winter months it was 
always filled with picquet players, during the sum- 
mer with fishermen. Percy’s father had died a 
year or two only after his son’s birth, and his wife, 
Lady Alicia, had survived him not more than three 
years. Old Mr. Gerard finally had died when 
Percy was only ten, and since his death, now four- 
teen years ago, the estate had been managed for 
the boy by his guardians. The house itself had 
been let for ten years to some Americans, who had 
renewed the lease for another five. It would thus 
fall vacant again the year Percy attained his ma- 
jority, and their application for the renewal of it he 
had, owing to his approaching marriage, decided 
to refuse. 


24 


The Money Market . 

Of his mother Percy only retained a very faint 
reminiscence ; his father he did not remember at 
all, but he had some distant recollection of his red 
dress-jacket. He had been killed in some punitive 
expedition in Africa, in rescuing a wounded com- 
rade under fire, and had he lived he would have 
received the Victoria Cross. With the name of 
his mother, who died very suddenly when he was 
only five, he associated a hitherto vague vision of a 
dark, beautiful woman, but now more vivid to 
him since he had known Lady Sybil, who was her 
second-cousin. Indeed, it was strange how that 
dim figure had started into distinctness ; he even 
began to recollect little tricks of manner peculiar to 
her, and shared by his fiancee . She had the same 
habit of looking over the heads of people, the same 
exquisite freshness of face, the same slow and grace- 
ful movements. How extraordinary such coinci- 
dences were ! In the face of his future wife his 
mother lived again, and he had his childlike adora- 
tion for her still burning. 

Lord Stoakley, who was a man of great sense, 
the natural outcome of a life-time of middle age, 
had brought up the boy with great simplicity. He 
had been sent to Winchester, and after Winchester 
he had passed a year and a half abroad, learning 
French and German. At twenty-one he had got a 
nomination for the Foreign Office examination, and 
had entered it as a junior clerk. From that time 
he had lived ten months of the year in London, 


25 


The Money Market. 

spending liis leave in Scotland or down _n the 
country. Till lie was twenty-three he had been 
kept in ignorance of how enormous was the fortune 
of which he would, in two years, become master, 
and when it was made known to him his manner 
of receiving it was absolutely unaffected and 
thoroughly characteristic. 

“What a bore!” he said. “It is too much for 
one.’ ’ 

Lord Stoakley, who had communicated the news 
to him, was almost playful. 

“You can always ask some one to share it with 
you,” he said, “and thus there will be others as 
well.” 

Percy sighed. 

“I shall have to marry,” he said. “What a 
responsibility ! ” and his handsome boyish face 
clouded a moment, and then cleared. “But per- 
haps no one will marry me,” he added hopefully. 

Lord Stoakley expressed neither support of nor 
dissent from this view, and the boy went on : 

“ How did my grandfather make such a fortune ? ” 
he asked. “Was his father very wealthy? ” 

“No, Percy,” said Lord Stoakley; “he made 
his fortune, in the main, himself. How, I am not 
at liberty to tell you. I cannot even tell you how 
large, exactly, your fortune will be ; but you will 
be one of the richest men in England. But on 
your twenty-fifth birthday, the day on which, as he 
arranged, you come into your property, I shall give 


26 


The Money Market. 

you certain instructions and a sealed letter from 
him, which, perhaps, will tell you the history of 
his fortune. Till then you are to remain in igno- 
rance. ” 

“Why, it is like a play,” cried the lad. “A 
sealed letter, on the day one comes of age ! How 
exciting!” And he laughed. 

Certainly Fortune, who often showers her favours 
so blindly and indiscriminately and with so glaring 
a want of taste, seemed here to have chosen a suita- 
ble recipient. Percy was essentially simple-minded, 
as it is right for rich men to be ; he was built of 
kindness, and his life was stainless. But he had 
also in him an ingredient which Nature should 
never forget to put in, when she is compounding 
the substance of one who will be a millionaire, 
— namely, an extraordinary delight in beautiful 
things, and a most accurate perception of what is 
beautiful and what is not. Editions of books which 
were remarkable only for their rarity did not ap- 
peal to him at all ; but he coveted with all the 
ardour of a bibliomaniac a beautiful edition of a 
book he loved. He detested artificiality, and the 
fashion of the day meant nothing to him. Beauti- 
ful things were desirable only for their beauty, 
and in no way because they were either rare or 
ancient; and because people chose to load their 
rooms with examples of Dresden china, only re- 
markable for the difficulty which had been over- 
come in the representation of lace in porcelain, he 


27 


The Money Market . 

saw no reason for making his own rooms unlivable- 
in. The consequence of this gospel of aesthetics 
was that they were a strange jumble of admirable 
objects. A few of the pictures from Abbotswortliy 
he had moved up to L,ondon, and a dreamy child’s 
face of Greuze looked at him from over his writing- 
table, and a Corot hung over the chimney-piece, on 
which stood a painted terra-cotta from Tanagra, 
and two pieces of old Satsuma ware. His theory 
was that all beautiful things are of one family, and 
each sets off the other, just as the beauty of a blonde 
is seen best when it is near the beauty of a brunette, 
and that of £Jie brunette when near the blonde. 
Certainly, so he thought, Corot, though a painter 
of the North, was closely allied in genius to the 
potter who had fashioned that exquisite clay sketch 
which stood just below the twilight scene. In both 
there was the same unerring perception of when to 
stop, the same entire absence of irritating detail ; 
above all, the same power of arresting and express- 
ing a moment. One knew, looking at the Corot, 
that the next instant another layer of dusk would 
have fallen over the sky, the red cap of the peasant 
woman would have been black, a star more conjec- 
tured than actually seen would have become lumi- 
nous. So, too, with the Greek figurine ; for one 
moment only the slim graceful girl stood like that, 
one hand wrapped in her shawl, the other just 
raising to her face her palmate fan ; the next she 
would have sat down on the rock behind her, and 


28 


The Money Market, 

have Degun fanning herself. Masters whose paint- 
ings were chiefly remarkable for their line and com- 
position he was content to have in photograph ; 
but he would not have exchanged his one little 
water-color Turner for the first proofs of all the 
engravings of the artist, nor again would he have 
taken a picture of Rembrandt in exchange for his 
three Rembrandt etchings. To the point of his 
finger-tips the lad was an artist — not creative, but 
critical. His moral and physical life was similarly 
directed by the critical faculty. Without in any 
way being a poseur , he had the habit of regarding 
as a spectator his own life, and his taste was fas- 
tidious. Immorality, to take it on the lowest 
grounds, seemed to him an ugliness, and he never 
sought for nasty arguments to justify nasty things. 
Uprightness and straightforward dealing were 
natural to him, and he took immense and simple 
pleasure in simple things. He was never bored, 
because he could turn from one pursuit to another 
without any diminution of zest. Finally, he liked 
his fellow-men, and the word in the dictionary least 
applicable to him was prig. 

This happy fathom of humanity was seated at 
breakfast on the morning after the opera with a 
school-friend, Ernest Fellowes, who was staying 
with him. In spite of the remarkable dissimilarity 
between the two, they had a cordial affection for 
each other, and utterly disagreed on every subject 
under the sun. 


29 


The Money Market. 

“It’s easy enough for you to smile at life,” Fel- 
lowes was saying, “ in fact it would be gross ingrat- 
itude of you to do otherwise; indeed, I don’t see 
how you could do otherwise. But we are not all 
millionaires with excellent digestions, engaged to 
professional beauties ; and it would be the merest 
affectation if I pretended to find such pleasure in life 
as you do without any affectation at all.” 

“Oh, that’s rot!” said Percy, genially. “You 
find in life exactly what you choose to find in it ; 
it all depends on how you look at things. If I woke 
up and found myself a bootblack, I should require 
a few days for readjustment, but at the end I should 
spit on my brushes with entire cheerfulness. It 
would be more difficult to remain cheerful if one 
had a bad digestion, but no doubt one would find 
some way of doing it.” 

4 ‘ And how if you found yourself what I am ? ’ ’ 
said the other; “if you, for some inexplicable 
reason, believed yourself to be less incapable of 
writing novels than of any other pursuit, and if the 
public viewed your masterpieces with distressing 
composure? ” 

“ My dear fellow, what does the public matter to 
an artist? If there is one thing in the world sweeter 
than to have your merit recognized, it is to have 
your merit unrecognized. Think of Corot, think 
of Millet, of— of— of any great artist !” 

“I would sooner not die in a garret,” said Fel- 
lowes decidedly, “ though perhaps it is a matter of 


30 


The Money Market . 

taste. But, though I don’t suppose I shall do that, 
what can be more ignoble than to do as I do? To 
believe myself capable — for I do so believe, worse 
luck — of writing something which may be worth 
reading, and to have to keep the pot boiling by 
writing critical notices of books I haven’t read, and 
grind out so much work a week, as if I was a con- 
vict who had to mount so many steps of the tread- 
mill every hour.” 

“ Of course if you regard your work in that sort 
of way, no wonder you lose all self-respect. ’ ’ 

“ My dear fellow,” said Ernest, “ it is a rank im- 
possibility to be a critic for a penny paper and at- 
tempt a high line. Editors don’t want high lines.” 

Percy looked at him rather shyly. 

“Ernest, why are you so absurd?” he said. 
“Why can’t you put your twopenny pride in your 
pocket, give up that sort of work, and do as I have 
so often asked you, and ” 

“ Sponge upon you ? ” 

“That is an offensive way of putting it. You 
are offensive this morning, you know. Oh, don’t 
apologize.” 

“I wasn’t going to,” remarked Eellowes, with a 
smile that he could not suppress; “nothing was 
further from my thoughts.” 

“I knew you weren’t,” said Percy. “I said it 
to excuse the absence of the apology. I really 
cannot understand making such a fuss about a few 
pounds. You, unfortunately, have too little ; I, in 


The Money Market. 


31 


this instance, fortunately, have too much. Nature 
demands a readjustment. You are proud, obstinate, 
ungenerous, and vain.” 

“Why vain? ” 

“ Because you prefer to pose as a martyr than to 
pocket your pride. A lot you care about your art ! ” 

“ More than the public does.’* 

Percy raised his eyes in despair. 

“Ernest, you are either a cynic,” he said, “or 
you have the lowest view of your work that I ever 
heard of, if you expect the public to care as much 
for your work as you do yourself. I don’t know 
which would be the silliest. It is exceedingly silly 
to be a cynic, but perhaps the other is the more 
despicable. About your sponging on me, as you 
call it ” 

“I’ll apologize for that.” 

“ It is the first sign of grace I have ever observed 
in }'our conduct. Well, about that, it isn’t as if I 
was making a sacrifice.” 

Ernest smiled at him. 

“ Percy, you are the best fellow in the world, I 
believe,” he said ; “ but you don’t understand. If 
you were offering me something which really cost 
you a sacrifice, I should take it. It is taking what 
you don’t want that beats me.” 

Percy rescued a struggling fly from the cream jug, 
silently and with immense care, and sat watching it 
brushing its head with its forelegs for a minute or so. 

“Ah, that is a new point of view,” he said at 


32 


The Money Market. 

length, “and it is rather a delicate one. Oh, you 
have perception at times, I don’ t deny it, ’ ’ and he 
laughed. 

“ But it doesn’t convince you that I am right? ” 

“ No, it certainly doesn’t. It is a little too subtle 
to be of any practical value ; but it implies a cer- 
tain delicacy. Put it in your next book.” 

“The devil take my next book!” said Ernest. 
“But there’s my reason for not accepting your 
offer. If you ever come to your last shilling, and 
I haven’t got a penny, I’ll take sixpence.” 

“All right, that is a bargain. In the mean- 
time ” 

“ In the meantime I shall take one of your cig- 
arettes,” said Ernest, leaving the table and opening 
a silver cigarette box. “ Hullo, it’s the last ! ” 

“According to your own showing, then, you are 
bound to take it,” said Percy, “because I want it ; 
but I hope you won’t.” 

Ernest had taken up a knife from the table. 

“ I shall cut it in half,” he said, “ and I shall take 
one half and you shall take the other. Thus we 
shall be consistent. In the meantime you shall 
send for some more.” 

Percy picked up a torn taggy section. 

“You’ve taken the biggest half,” he said, re- 
proachfully. “That does not show the delicacy I 
had credited you with.” 

Percy lunched with the Stoakleys, and after lunch 
he and Blanche went to Eord’s, where they met 


33 


The Money Market . 

Lady Sybil and her mother, and watched the cricket 
for an hour or two. Blanche returned early, as her 
mother had a dinner-party that night, and people 
had to be looked out in Debrett. Lady Stoakley 
was not yet in, and Blanche had tea by herself, 
looking unusually grave. After tea she got out the 
list of guests, and sat down to wrestle with prece- 
dence, but her eye kept wandering from the paper, 
and for half an hour she contemplated an irregular 
oval which she had drawn on a half-sheet of paper, 
which was meant to represent the dining-room table, 
without putting any names round it. Younger 
sons of earls and eldest sons of viscounts seemed 
to her hardly distinguishable. At last she got up 
and walked to the window. The sun was swung 
westward, and she drew up the Venetian blind 
which had kept the room cool during the day. 
Outside, St. James’s park was enveloped in a blue 
haze of heat, and the dusky London grass was dot- 
ted with groups of people. The traffic of Pall Mall 
hummed in the air like the bourdon note of some 
great organ, with a drowsy persistence now swell- 
ing into a crescendo, and now diminishing again, 
but never stopping. She saw and heard only half 
consciously, only half consciously she felt the cool 
lifting of her hair in the evening breeze. Then 
suddenly her eyes grew moist with tears. 

“ Oh, poor Percy ! poor Percy ! ” she said aloud. 

3 


CHAPTER III* 
At Lord's. 


Lady Sybil and her mother stopped later at 
Lord’s, and did not leave till half-past six, when 
stumps were drawn. Percy was to dine with them 
en famille and afterwards they were going to see 
La Dusd in Magda . He put them into their car- 
riage at the gate, and as there was still plenty of 
time, he walked down towards Baker Street, for the 
sake of the exercise. He was intensely, almost 
riotously happy ; he had his boots infamously mis- 
handled by a ragged Ishmaelite boy, to whom he 
gave sixpence, and he bought a carnation from a 
flower-girl without remembering that he had al- 
ready a gardenia given him by Sybil in his button- 
hole. That, of course, it was impossible to part 
with, and with a delicate gentleness he walked on 
with his carnation in his hand till he was out of 
sight of the girl, and then bestowed it on an iron 
railing, smiling to himself out of sheer happiness. 
He devoted two minutes of serious consideration to 
a couple of colored chalk drawings made on the 
pavement by an extremely prosperous-looking street 
craftsman with the air of an Academician, and was 
conscientiously able to declare that they contained 
no merit of any kind whatever, and no seed of any 
34 


35 


The Money Market . 

sort of promise. One represented a forest scene 
with an amazing number of trees, resembling amor- 
phous ferns, reflected in a woodland pool of violent 
blue surrounded by black fantastic rocks; and the 
other a blinding snowstorm at sea, with the lines 
of a vessel dimly descried throwing up a sickly 
green rocket. So classic an example of the violation 
of all the canons of art in two small pictures 
seemed to him to be worth a shilling, which he be- 
stowed with complete gravity. 

Indeed, he had reason to be happy, for he was 
an accepted lover, and the world can never hold a 
better fate than that. How unspeakably charming 
Sybil had been that afternoon, and what an incredi- 
ble ignorance she had shown of the elements of 
cricket ! Eighty runs had been scored for three 
wickets in the first innings when they arrived, and 
she asked him with the intensest curiosity “ which 
side was beating.” To enlighten so radical a want 
of knowledge, it had been necessary to begin with 
“ You see those three sticks there? Well, they are 
called stumps.” But she had not been satisfied 
with this elementary instruction, and before an 
hour was up she had fully grasped the meaning of 
“yorker” and “break from the off,” as well as 
being able to give a wrong name to a majority of 
the field. By a fine stroke of reasoning she had an- 
nounced that a man caught by long-on was caught 
by “ the man at pull,” and with equal felicity she 
dubbed “point” the “cutter.” 


36 


The Money Market . 


At the close of the first innings they had left the 
pavilion and walked with Blanche to the gate, to 
see her into a hansom, and had then strolled round 
the ground together. They met numberless peo- 
ple they knew, and received scores of congratula- 
tions, for their engagement had been in the morn- 
ing papers that day. Percy had been universally 
acknowledged to be the great catch of the year, 
and Sybil was an acknowledged beauty. The 
event therefore was of some interest. Sybil re- 
ceived their congratulations with a sort of shy 
pleasure which seemed to Percy ineffably charming. 
Then, after they had strolled half round the ground: 

“ Oh, Percy,” she had said, “how kind every 
one is ! They really seem to be happy that we are 
so happy. But take me back again to the Pavilion. 
I can’t see any more people now. They seem,” 
and she paused, — “ they seem to come between you 
and me.” 

Later, while Percy was making his pleasant way 
down Baker Street, and living over again the de- 
licious moments of that afternoon, Lady Otter- 
bourne and Sybil, both sitting very upright in their 
victoria, were taken towards Bruton Street. Sybil’s 
face was prettily flushed, and her eyes were very 
bright, as if she had been playing some game of 
skill with well-earned success. But the corners of 
her beautiful bow-shaped mouth drooped a little, 
as if the game had tired her. Lady Otterbourne, 
on the other hand, showed no traces of fatigue. 


37 


The Money Market . 

She was a tall finely-made woman, only just over 
forty and the years had but embellished her. She 
had been the second wife of the late L,ord Otter- 
bourne, who had died some two years after his mar- 
riage, leaving her with the one child and a somewhat 
insufficient allowance, But she had met the world 
boldly, and as Sybil grew up, clever, winning and 
beautiful, she felt that the money she was so lavish 
with in order to give the girl a good chance was 
merely an investment sure to yield high interest. 
That she had money troubles all the world knew; 
once a considerable sum had been given her by her 
stepson, the present I^ord Otterbourne, to extricate 
her from an exceedingly tight place, and shield her 
from declared bankruptcy; but he had intimated on 
that occasion that any further application to him 
would be vain, and that he neither would nor could 
pay any more of her debts. The estate was already 
encumbered with heavy charges, and it could not 
be further drained. L,ady Otterbourne had told 
him with embarrassing frankness on this occasion 
that she knew the poverty of the estate only too 
well, and that she was fully aware that he had not 
at all approved of the father’s second marriage. 
That, however, had been his father’s affair, and his 
son could not possibly regret the step more than 
his second wife had done. She made her bow to 
him. 

But Providence had not forgotten the widow and 
the fatherless. If in the length and breadth of 


38 


The Money Market . 

England she had been given a free hand to choose 
a husband for Sybil, she would not have chosen 
otherwise. Percy was grandson of a duke on . his 
mother's side; and if no one knew much about the 
parentage of his grandfather, so much the better. 
Best of all, he was, for all practical purposes (and 
Eady Otterbourne was very practical), a man of un- 
limited means. Abbotsworthy House was fit for a 
royal prince, and Sybil would be mistress of it. 
Percy himself was admirably well-bred, he was 
good-looking, and, morally, not even the best of his 
friends — for he had no enemies — could find a word 
to say against him. He was not, it is true, of quite 
the type of young man which Lady Otterbourne 
found amusing; he was too fond of simple pleasures, 
and scandalous stories did not interest him in the 
smallest degree. Indeed the only time Lady Ot- 
terbourne had seen him forget his manners was 
when she told him a very ben trovato story about a 
mutual friend. He had turned on her with a 
scowl : 

“ I don’t want to hear that sort of thing,” he had 
said. u If it is true, it should never have been re- 
peated ; and if it is untrue, it is scandalous.” 

But his admirable character and his simple 
pleasures had much more to recommend them than 
the reverse would have had ; and he was very safe, 
which was delightful for Sybil. But certainly his 
explanations about cricket had been a trifle weari- 
some and no wonder Sybil looked a little tired. 


39 


The Money Market . 

' * Percy was really rather long-winded about that 
tiresome game,” she remarked to her daughter. 
“ What pleasure there can be in seeing a man hit 
a ball with a piece of wood I cannot conjecture. 
The English classical games are absolutely unin- 
telligible.” 

“ Oh, I thought it was thrilling ! ” said Sybil. 

Her mother looked at her dryly. 

“You behaved very well, dear,” she said, and 
added to herself, “ But such behaviour is unneces- 
sary now.” 

“ Behaved well? What do you mean, mother?” 

“Dear child,” said Eady Otterbourne, “it was 
very nice and wise of you to seem so interested. It 
is admirable for a man if he is able to be pleased 
and interested in that sort of game. I envy the 
people with simple athletic tastes, but I can’t un- 
derstand them.” 

A look — it would be exaggeration to call it foxy 
— came into Sybil’s face. Her nose seemed to get 
just a shade sharper, and her lips compressed. 

“ Percy is so much interested in so many things,” 
she said. 

“ Yes, dear, and it will be your business to keep 
him interested in them. Of course he will resign 
his clerkship in the Foreign Office, for that keeps 
him ten months of the year in Eondon, but other- 
wise the more things he takes an interest in the 
better. I hope, for instance, he will go into Par- 
liament, — that is always considered respectable. 


40 


The Money Market . 

Again, lie might take to farming. He lias a great 
deal of practical ability, and endless interest in de- 
tails. I believe one needn’t lose very much money 
if one manages a farm carefully. L,uckily, Percy 
needn’t consider that,” and she sighed amorously. 

“ How did his grandfather make his fortune ? ’ ’ 
asked Sybil. 

“I don’t know. I asked Percy about it, but even 
he didn’t know. He told me something about a 
sealed letter to him from his grandfather, which 
would be placed in his hands in September, on his 
twenty-fifth birth-day. That will be just before 
your wedding, Sybil. However, his grandfather 
did make a fortune : there is no doubt about that, 
and really that is all that matters.” 

“It is interesting,” said Sybil. “I wonder if 
Percy will tell me when he knows ? ” 

“ I shouldn’t ask, if I were you. It cannot pos- 
sibly matter, and if it was made in some — well, 
some rather shady way, it is just as well that it 
should not be known. Some people are so absurd 
and old-fashioned.” 

“I don’t feel as if I should mind much,” said 
Sybil, “ the making of it is so remote. How can it 
concern Percy ? ” 

“Of course, that is the only view to take,” 
said L,ady Otterbourne. “A sovereign made in 
selling adulterated beer is just as good as any 
other sovereign. Certainly as long as one has 
not had a hand in the making of it oneself, there 


The Money Market. 41 

is nothing that can matter less than how it has been 
made.” 

“Isn’t there some phrase, ‘an accomplice after 
the fact ?’ ” asked Sybil. 

“No doubt there are all sorts of phrases,” said 
her mother. “But probably Mr. Gerard’s money 
was made in some honest, wholesome trade ; and 
even if it were not so, it concerns nobody now.” 

Eady Otterbourne lived in a small house in 
Bruton Street, left her for her life by her late hus- 
band. She used never to come to Eondon before 
Easter, and she let it when she was fortunate, for 
seven or eight months in the year. This brought 
her in a sum of money which was often very useful 
to her, for she was deliberately extravagant, and, as 
has been stated, her allowance was not large. Her 
stepson, a man whom Eady Otterbourne considered 
of an antiquated and absurd type, had much dis- 
liked her letting it. The house had been meant, he 
said, for her to live in, and it was lowering the dig- 
nity of the family to do anything but let it stand 
empty when she was not there. Lady Otterbourne 
was frankly unable to understand such an argu- 
ment, and instanced a hundred people who did the 
same. And as he had no reply ready for the retort 
that it was beneath the dignity of an earl to leave 
his wife with the means of a housekeeper, she con- 
sidered the argument closed. 

It was nearly time to dress for dinner when they 
reached Bruton Street, but Eady Otterbourne lin- 


42 


The Money Market . 

gered a few minutes over some letters in her morn- 
ing room before consigning lierself to her maid. 
One seemed to cause her some agitation, and she 
walked up and down her room before sitting down 
to answer it. Even then she only dipped the pen 
in the ink and threw it down again. Eventually 
she wrote and addressed a telegram : 

“Please come to see me here to-morrow at 
eleven. ” 


CHAPTER IV. 

Lady Otterbourne's Visitor. 

Sybil went out after breakfast next morning to 
ride her bicycle in the Park, where Percy was to 
meet her, and Lady Otterbourne was glad to find 
that she was still out at eleven, when she expected 
her visitor. Shortly after the clock had struck she 
saw from the window of her morning room a han- 
som drive up and a young man get out. She had 
told her servant that she was at home to a Mr. 
Samuelson, and in a few moments he was shown up. 

He was quite young, not more than two or three 
and twenty, urbane and self-possessed, and he 
looked perfectly English. In fact, he was a shade 
too self-possessed, he was too clearly accustomed to 
consider himself a gentleman; it must have been a 
habit of his to assure himself of it often. He bowed 
to Lady Otterbourne, who remained seated, and 
said : 

“ Your ladyship asked to see me this morning.” 

“ Mr. Samuelson ? ” asked Lady Otterbourne. 

“ Yes ; my father was away, and in his absence 
I thought it better to come myself than to send one 
of our clerks to see you.” 

Lady Otterbourne flushed. This young gentle- 
man apparently knew the polite art of being inde- 

43 


44 


The Money Market . 

finably rude, and slie regretted she had not received 
him more cordially. 

“Please take a seat, Mr. Samuelson,” she said. 
“ I sent for — I asked you to come in order that I 
might renew my bill. Also I am in need of a 
further loan.” 

Mr. Samuelson took out of his breastpocket a 
neat green morocco notebook, bound in silver, with 
a silver monogram 011 it. 

“ I have made a memorandum of your ladyship’s 
obligations to us,” he said, “since I supposed that 
your sending for me implied that you wished at 
least to renew. In fact, that is why I am a few 
minutes late.” 

“I wish for a further loan as well,” said Lady 
Otterbourne. 

Mr. Samuelson added up some figures with much 
composure. 

“The debt a year ago was ^12,000,” he said. 
“Since then you have renewed it for two periods of 
six months, the interest for the second of which 
renewals has not yet been paid. Consequently,” 
and again he paused, regarding Lady Otterbourne 
no more than he would have regarded a stuffed 
animal, — “ consequently you are now in our debt 
to the amount of £1 5,600.’ * 

“ I have no doubt that is the case,” said she. 

“ I have had the honor to inform your ladyship 
that it is so,” said he. “You will find that 60 per 
cent, on ^12,000 for six months makes ,£3,600, or 


45 


The Money Market . 

in all ^15,600. My father is away, as I told you, 
and I am in a little difficulty. From a few words 
lie happened to drop to me on the subject, I gath- 
ered that he did not intend to grant your ladyship 
a renewal till the arrears of interest, at any rate, 
were paid up. And I hardly like to take the 
responsibility on myself, the sum for which yoft 
are indebted to us being so considerable.” 

And Mr. Samuelson adjusted the elastic band 
round his green morocco notebook with imper- 
turbable precision, and put it back in the pocket 
of his grey frock-coat. 

“What do you propose to do?” asked Lady 
Otterbourne, rising and standing at her full height, 
but with a perceptible tremor in her voice. 

“I am not aware that I said I proposed to do 
anything,” said Mr. Samuelson. 

“ I cannot pay you at present,” said she. 

Mr. Samuelson coughed discreetly behind his 
hand. 

“ The usual course is to take steps to recover the 
debt, ’ ’ he said. 

There was a pause, during which Lady Otter- 
bourne heard the fretful ticking of the clock on the 
mantelpiece, but before long Mr. Samuelson con- 
tinued. 

“Your ladyship said you could not pay at pres- 
ent,” he remarked. “ Is there, then, any likelihood 
of your being able to pay in the near future?” 

Lady Otterbourne met his eye for a moment, and 


46 


The Money Market . 

turned her head away, and the ghost of a smile 
hovered round Mr. Samuelson’ s clean-shaven, well- 
cut mouth. 

“I shall, I think, for certain be able to pay you 
after next September,” she said at length. 

“Can you give me any further information?” 
asked Mr. Samuelson. “If” — and he laid stress 
on the monosyllable — “ if I take the responsibility 
into my own hands, and let your ladyship renew, 
instead of adopting — adopting the usual course in 
such cases, can you give me reasonable grounds 
on which I can account to my father for my so 
acting?” 

Cady Otterbourne again sat silent a moment. 

“Yes,” she said at length, “and I think you 
know them, do you not? You have probably 
heard that Cady Sybil Attwood, my daughter, is 
engaged to be married to Mr. Percy Gerard?” 

Mr. Samuelson took his little notebook briskly 
out of his pocket. 

“ I had seen a paragraph yesterday in the papers 
to that effect,” he said, “but one hardly likes to 
trust the papers, does one? Your ladyship’s con- 
firmation of it is, of course, enough. Our house 
will be happy to renew till — till next September, I 
think you said.” 

“The marriage takes place on the fifteenth of 
the month,” said Cady Otterbourne. She heard 
herself saying the words as if they had come out of 
some other mouth than her own. 


The Money Market . 47 

“ Perhaps, then, it would be more convenient to 
yon to renew till, let me say, the fifteenth of Octo- 
ber,’ 7 said Mr. Samuelson, with much tact. “Your 
ladyship would hardly like immediately — I am sure 
you understand. Shall we say October?” 

Lady Otterbourne could have thrown the clock 
at this tactful young gentleman with pleasure ; but 
she remembered that there would probably be more 
to pay than the damage done to the clock. It was 
quite a different matter, she found, to form privately 
a scheme of this kind, and to discuss the details of 
it with a stranger. She felt as if she was being 
stripped of her clothes in public. 

“The fifteenth of October would be more con- 
venient,” she said, “for — for several reasons. I 
should also, as I told you, be much obliged if you 
could make me another loan.” 

“How much would you require?” 

“Three thousand pounds.” 

Mr. Samuelson with his head a little on one side 
went through a short mental calculation, tapping 
his gold pencil-case between his half-closed teeth ; 
Lady Otterbourne noticed that they were remark- 
ably white and even. 

“I am afraid I hardly like to take the further 
responsibility on myself,” he said, “but I will 
write at once to my father about it. It is, however, 
better to tell you that I do not think he would 
make the further advance on our usual rates of 
interest. Your ladyship must remember that the 


48 


The Money Market . 

old debt has been running a considerable time. 
He might, I think, require an additional ten per 
cent, on the money, unless,” and his eye wandered 
round the pretty Louis Quinze room, “unless you 
can give us some additional security.’ * 

Lady Otterbourne lost her temper. 

“Ah, you are extortionate bloodsuckers!” she 
exclaimed. 

Mr. Samuelsou winked slightly, as people do at 
a sudden noise ; but otherwise his sangfroid was 
undisturbed, and he flecked a speck of dust from 
his sleeve. 

“You will do us the justice to observe that we 
have not as yet succeeded in sucking anything 
from your ladyship,” he remarked, and his voice 
had a just audible tremor in it, as if he was sup- 
pressing a laugh. 

Lady Otterbourne suddenly seemed to remember 
that no purpose can conceivably be served by telling 
money-lenders to their face that they are blood- 
suckers. True, it had been a momentary gratifica- 
tion for her ; but on the whole Mr. Samuelson’s 
retort was far more effective than her own attack. 
She had, in fact, only given him an opening for a 
neat little piece of insolence. 

“ I beg your pardon, Mr. Samuelson,” she said ; 
1 ‘ 1 forgot myself. But I have been worried and 
troubled of late.” 

“ I hope from what your ladyship has said that 
you are nearly at the end of your trouble,” said 


The Money Market . 49 

Mr. Samuelson, with something of the air of a 
dentist who is stopping a painful tooth. 

Lady Otterbourne could almost have laughed in 
the midst of her exasperation at the well-bred rude- 
ness of the man, at his colossally impertinent tact- 
fulness. 

“ I think I need not detain you any longer,” she 
said, giving him her hand. “ You will be kind 
enough then to send me the necessary forms for the 
renewal at once, and also to communicate with your 
father about the additional loan. I shall be in 
London till the end of the month. It would be 
convenient to hear before then.” 

“With the greatest pleasure,” said Mr. Samuel- 
son, rising. “Ah, will your ladyship allow me to 
look at this table a moment? Yes, indeed, the 
bronzes are most beautiful. Duveen has not got so 
fine a specimen. I will wish your ladyship good- 
morning ;” and taking his hat, this polished young 
gentleman left the room. 

Lady Otterbourne stood still where he had left 
her for a minute or more. She had planned to act 
as she had acted without any sense of shame ; but 
hard, unprincipled and worldly as she was, the 
scene itself when actually on the boards had filled 
her with disgust of herself. The odious urbanity 
and the gentlemanly appearance of the younger 
Mr. Samuelson seemed to her an outrage. She 
felt that she would not have minded the scene if 
the other actor had been the young man’s father, 
4 


50 


The Money Market . 

wlio was a sleek and truckling old Jew, and wore 
the manner of a man receiving a favor when she 
came to him for money. But his son had not 
learned his trade : he made no pretence of consider- 
ing himself honored by an interview with her ; he 
did not allude delicately to the u transaction of last 
October,” but stated brutal amounts in hard cash ; 
and though she knew perfectly well that the father’s 
servility was rank imposture, yet a little decent dis- 
simulation was really required to carry through 
such raw and crude bits of bargaining — otherwise, 
it was like acting without any get-up in the broad 
eye of day. 

Sybil came gracefully home to Bruton Street not 
long after Mr. Samuelsoii had gone, and found her 
mother upstairs in her room. She was radiant 
with her ride, the roads had been charming ; she 
herself, as she knew, had been looking charming ; 
Percy had been charming, and he was going to 
send her that very day a pearl necklace which had 
belonged to his mother. 

‘ ‘ The pearls are enormous and very fine, Percy 
says,” she told her mother, “and he always knows 
good things from bad. I have always longed to 
have some big pearls. Good pearls are so rare, 
they are worth anything. Isn’t he a dear?” 

Her mother did not reply, and Sybil, looking at 
her, saw that the effects of her interview 'still 
remained in a certain angry agitation which quiv- 
ered on her face. 


51 


The Money Market . 

“What is it, mother ?” she asked. “Has some- 
thing disagreeable happened ? Oh, I hope not ; it 
is so tiresome when disagreeable things come and 
spoil all one’s pleasure ! ” 

“ I have had a worrying interview on a business 
subject,” said her mother. “Good heavens, Sybil ! 
what an awful thing it is ” and she stopped. 

Sybil glanced quickly at her mother with a little 
sideway movement of he head. 

“About business? Does that mean money?” 

“Yes, money, if you wish to know. Also, I 
have been made angry.” 

Again Sybil’s face looked a little sharp and foxy. 

“Well, surely money need never worry us any 
more,” she said. “Only this morning, mother, 
Percy told me to tell you ” 

Dady Otterbourne had taken a piece of paper 
from her desk, and had begun to write a note. 
But at these words the crackle of her quill over the 
paper ceased suddenly, and her hand stayed over 
an unfinished word. 

“ Percy told me to tell you that he claimed the 
right to relieve you of any anxieties you might 
have of that kind.” 

“ How does Percy know I have anxieties of that 
kind?” asked Dady Otterbourne sharply. 

“I am sure I can’t say,” returned Sybil, “but I 
suppose he knows, as everybody else knows, that 
we are not very well off. He said it all so nicely 
and delicately. He said it would be a real favor to 


52 The Money Market. 

him if, when anything of that sort worried yon, or 
if you were in want of something you couldn’t get, 
to let him know. He would have told you himself, 
but he thought it would come better from me. He 
has very fine perceptions. ’ ’ 

Lady Otterbourne walked to the window. 

“It is quite true, Sybil,” she said, “I am terri- 
bly worried about money. Yet how can I ask 
Percy for it ? Did he seem really to expect that I 
should ? It is a hard thing to do.” 

Sybil took off her gloves very slowly, wondering 
to herself, just as Lady Otterbourne had wondered 
about her as they drove from Lord’s on the after- 
noon before, what was the use of keeping that sort 
of thing up. 

“I suppose,” said she at last, in a clear incisive 
voice, “that when I promised to marry Percy, 
neither of us considered it a disadvantage that he 
was rich. And when he is so amiable as to offer 
to relieve you of your anxieties, I cannot see rhyme 
or reason in hanging back. Where is the difficulty ? 
How much money do yon want, mother ? If you 
like, I will tell him.” 

Now it is a very curious and exceedingly com- 
mon phenomenon that when a man, even a natu- 
rally frank man, is in debt, and is asked, with a 
view to their payment, what his debts are, he will 
not state them in full. It is hard to tell the whole 
against oneself, and Lady Otterbourne was wholly 
incapable of it. She did not consciously wish to 


53 


The Money Market . 

whitewash the situation; blit though any confes- 
sion was difficult, she found it much more possible 
to contemplate cutting a much worse figure six 
months hence than a very bad one to-day. She 
could only bring herself to mention the amount of 
the new loan she wished to obtain from Samuelson’s 
house, hoping that it would not occur to Percy that 
she was in debt, but merely that she wanted the 
cash. To tell him that she was in the hands of 
money-lenders, to be frank about the whole thing, 
she could not face. Yet, even while she purposely 
kept back the greater part of her debt, she knew 
that to act thus was only to go to Percy again ; but 
tell the whole she could not. 

“Three thousand pounds,” she said, “would 
relieve me of all anxiety.” 

Sybil opened her eyes very wide ; had it been 
ladylike she would have whistled, and words cannot 
say how intensely irritating her mother found that 
little gesture. 

“That sounds an awful lot,” said she. Then, 
with a laugh in which there was no merriment, 
“ How lucky that Percy is very rich !” 

Lady Otterbourne was silent. Sybil seemed to 
wish to parade Percy as her property, to make 
herself conspicuously the channel through which 
came the gift to her mother, and such an attitude 
was intolerably galling to Lady Otterbourne. But 
her pride was worsted by the prospect of even par- 
tial relief, and she said nothing till Sybil spoke again. 


54 The Money Market . 

“ Well, it can’t be helped,” she said. “ 1 will cer- 
tainly ask Percy ; and he is such a dear, generous 
darling, that I am sure he won’t mind. I wonder 
if those pearls have come yet.” 

Percy came to lunch at Bruton Street, and Sybil 
made up her mind to ask him as soon as they were 
alone afterwards. He brought with him the pearls 
he had promised her, and they more than fulfilled 
her expectations. It was the prettiest thing in the 
world to see her pleasure in, her worship even of the 
beautiful lustrous things. There were two rows of 
them, most carefully chosen, and all with that 
wonderful sheen in them that makes them look as 
if they were lit from within — a mark, as Sybil 
knew, of the finest pearls ; and she noticed with 
rapture that they were all of the same size, and did 
not tail off into mere peas, still less mere grains, 
behind the neck. Pearls suited her dark beauty to 
admiration, and the most notorious cynic could not 
have doubted the sincerity of her gratitude for the 
glorious bauble. 

An engagement called L,ady Otterbourne away 
soon after lunch, and the two young people sat 
together in Sybil’s own little sitting-room at the 
top of the house, talking of a thousand things, the 
girl still holding the pearls in her hand and touch- 
ing them in turn softly and lovingly with her cool 
finger-tips. 

“ I like pearls better than anything, Percy,” she 
said, “they are so sympathique . The more you 


55 


The Money Market . 

wear them, the more you touch them, the better it 
is for them. I like to think they get to know and 
delight in one’s touch.” 

“ Your pearls are very lucky, Sybil,” said he, and 
she smiled her answer to him. 

But by degrees Sybil grew a little silent, and 
Percy asked her what was on her mind. 

“ Do you remember what you said to me this 
morning about mother? ” she asked. 

“Surely. Have you been good, for once, and 
not forgotten to ask her? Do you mean to tell 
me you have really so far forgotten yourself as to 
remember something ? ” 

Sybil smiled. 

“You are too foolish,” she said; “as if I ever 
forget anything you tell me ! Anyhow, I remem- 
bered this. She is worried about money. ’ ’ 

“I am delighted to hear it,” said Percy. “At 
least, you see what I mean ?’ ’ 

Sybil gave him a little quick, trembling kiss. 

“ You are very generous,” she said. “ But it is 
such an awful lot, I hardly like to ask you? ” 

“You promised,” said Percy. 

“Well, she said that three thousand pounds 
would relieve her of all anxiety.” 

Percy laughed. 

“ How terrible ! ” he said. “ How truly terrible ! 
How shall I send it, Sybil ? Perhaps it would be 
best to pay it into her account, and so she needn’t 
be bothered to send me a receipt, or any horrid 


56 The Money Market . 

thing 01 that sort London and Westminster 
is it?” 

Sybil looked at him a moment, and then sud- 
denly seized his hand and kissed it. 

“You are good, Percy. You are generous,” she 
said. “And I love you.” 

“Thank you, dear, for saying that,” he said 
quite gravely. “That is the one thing I shall 
never be tired of hearing, Sybil. Well, that is 
done with, is it not? Let’s talk about something 
more interesting ? ’ ’ 

“ How rude you are ! Isn’t mother interesting ? ’ ’ 

“We were talking about money,” said he, “and 
money certainly is not.” 

Sybil looked thoughtful. 

“ I am not sure about that,” she said. 

“Well, I am. Did the new bicycle take you 
home nicely ? ’ ’ 

Before leaving, he wrote a short note to Lady 
Otterbourne, and showed it to Sybil before he 
sealed it up. 

“Will it do?” he asked. “I mean, does it 
sound sincere ? God knows it is ; ” and she read : — 

“ My dear Mother, 

“ You have no idea how great a pleasure you have given 
me in letting me feel that you can trust me. I take this as 
a pledge that you will always do so, until I fail you. Then 
you shall deal with me as you will. 

“ Yours affectionately, 

“ Percy Gerard. 


The Money Market. 


57 


‘ P. S. — I ’ve paid tlie cheque into your account at the 
London and Westminster Bank, so you needn’t be bothered 
with sending me a receipt.” 

Sybil read it through, and when she gave it back 
to him her eyes were dim. 

w Yes, it will certainly do, Percy,” she said. 


CHAPTER V* 

Abbotsworthy* 

Sybil and Percy had arranged to go down some 
day before the end of July to see their future 
country house at Abbotsworthy. The Americans, 
to whom it had been let for all these years, were 
in London for the season ; and they left W aterloo 
early one morning, so as to be able to spend the 
inside of the day at the place, where they would 
see how much painting and carpeting had to be 
done before they came into it in the autumn ; and 
Sybil would choose her rooms. They were to get 
back in time for dinner, and were going to a dance 
afterwards. Blanche Stoakley, at Sybil's particular 
request, came with them. Sybil had struck up a 
somewhat intimate acquaintance with her, since 
her engagement to Percy ; though how far Blanche 
responded, owing to her personal liking for the 
other, and how much of her friendship was a toll 
of loyalty paid on account of Percy, is uncertain. 
Her loyalty, in any case, was of a convincing 
order, and Percy felt a particular pleasure in see- 
ing the attachment between the girl he loved and 
the girl he so much liked. 

It was one of those mornings when Nature seems 
to be making a really serious effort to be pleasant, 
58 


59 


The Money Market . 

and on such occasions liow admirably she succeeds? 
No one, as has been truly remarked, can be so 
pleasant as Nature when she chooses to exert her- 
self. Even over London the air was almost clear, 
and the slight thickening of the atmosphere was in 
her hands but a medium for subtleties of colour and 
tone. The haze which never quite leaves our 
streets was thin and opalescent, a veil of half tints, 
and full of the hints and suggestions and deliberate 
sobriety of impressionist art. There is no city in 
the world so wonderfully “ composed n as London, 
and as Percy drove to Waterloo he saw right and 
left a unique gallery of modern pictures by artists 
familiar to him. On certain days, as we all know, 
Nature manifests herself as a painter of the early 
English school ; on others, of the Dutch ; occa- 
sionally, even, she is Venetian or Florentine. But 
to-day she was emphatically modern and French, 
an apotheosis of the Caillebotte collection. Hyde 
Park Corner was an unquestionable Claude Monet, 
the Green Park a fine Rodin, Trafalgar Square with 
the National Gallery standing quivering behind 
the fountain was a Renoir, and a whole mile of 
Whistlers extended down the Embankment. The 
completeness of the happiness which Sybil had 
awakened in him was far from rendering him im- 
percipient of all but Sybil ; rather his love seemed 
to have quickened all the nerves and senses of his 
body : the beauty of all he saw was more vividly 
perceived ; colour had grown more exquisite since 


60 


The Money Market . 

lie had known Sybil ; music had gained in har- 
mony ; and the world had been flushed with new 
and unknown loveliness. For his was one of those 
natures to which happiness and perception of beauty 
come together as a birthright ; each fed and minis- 
tered to the other, and the one’s gain was the gain 
of the other also. 

Blanche had already arrived at Waterloo when he 
drove up, and Sybil’s hansom came a minute or so 
later. They had, of course, the usual difficulty in 
finding from which platform their train started, and 
the feverish, over-driven porters as usual, exhib- 
ited a perfectly unassumed, but baffling, ignorance 
of this important point ; but as the train (also as 
usual) was late in starting, they found it before it 
left the station with the reluctance of a child who 
is made to bathe in the sea on a cold day and is 
dragged there only after immense shrieking and 
backing away. 

The train, after throwing the suburbs and the 
hideous backs of semi-detached houses over its 
shoulder, ran through a delectable land. The fields 
and inimitable trees of England, a combination not 
elsewhere to be seen on the planet, lay on either 
hand. For a brief space the river-side kept them 
company on the left, and they caught a flying 
glimpse of that beautiful red brick tower where 
Wolsey lived after his butcher’s block had grown 
tall enough to lift him to the level of the throne, 
and from where he wrote so bitterly of the miasma 


61 


The Money Market . 

from the low-lying fields. Woking was a sandy 
streak, the Fleet ponds a silver splash, and they 
stayed to draw breath at Basingstoke. Thereafter 
they went more slowly, passing into a hilly country 
of chalk, stopped again for no conceivable reason at 
a sad and solitary cowshed called Micheldever, and 
drew up at the end of their journey at Royal Win- 
chester. 

Over this town there lies pre-eminent the charm 
of Gothic and ancient things. Every other house 
is a leaf from a mediaeval chronicle, and the cathe- 
dral and college are chapters complete. Percy had 
been there at school, and as he again entered his 
charmed land forgotten phrases sprang to his tongue, 
unintelligible in themselves, and not rendered more 
comprehensive to Blanche and Sybil by his expla- 
nation that they were “ notions.” 

They lunched in the town at the George Plotel, 
and spent half-an-hour, while it was getting ready, 
in driving about the city, strolling through the 
Close under the immemorial elms, and hanging a 
minute on the mill bridge to watch a mighty trout 
feeding. Afterwards they set out for Abbotsworthy, 
two miles off. The house stood on a hill, and 
crowned the valley of the Itchen. Two red-brick 
towers enclosed a gateway, and entering they drove 
up an immense gravel sweep to the front door. A 
short flight of steps led to the lower corridor, which 
ran the length of the house, and Sybil stopped 
astounded at the magnificence which should be 


62 


The Money Market . 

hers. The corridor was some hundred and fifty 
feet long, and hung from end to end with Gobelin 
tapestry. At wide intervals doors opened into the 
reception rooms of the house, and at the far end 
ran another corridor at right angles leading to the 
great dining hall. Before one of these doors Percy 
stopped. 

“ It was my mother’s room, darling,” he said to 
Sybil, “and please God it shall be yours. Eet us 
go in together.” 

The reception-rooms, two drawing-rooms, a 
smaller cabinet, the room of Percy’s mother, and 
the library looked out across the garden to the water 
meadows of the Itchen. Sybil had no great love 
for the beauties of Nature, but even she stopped 
with a quick-drawn breath and an explanation of 
delight at the view. Meadow stretched below flower- 
studded meadow ; the clear, swift stream lay in 
curves and loops beyond ; and the great chalk 
downs, still green and unscorched, rose shoulder 
over shoulder on the far side in massive and melt- 
ing undulations. To the right, in a hollow of the 
valley, lay the spires and roofs of Winchester, with 
the bloom of a plum on them, and for the fore- 
ground myriad-coloured flower beds bounded the 
spaces of green, close-shaven lawn. Over all lay 
the flood of brilliant sunshine, vivifying and caress- 
ing all it touched, temperate and unstinted. The 
whole scene was large and generous, and English 
to the core. 


63 


The Money Market . 

To Percy it was an indescribable pleasure to see 
bis old home again. The trail of the invaders was 
not over it ; for the present tenants were in London, 
and they had had the good taste not to alter any of 
the existing decoration. The house had been com- 
pletely done up when old Mr. Gerard purchased it, 
and the rooms were still painted in the colours Percy 
remembered, though faded now and requiring re- 
newal ; the same pictures hung in the same places 
on the wall — he might have been only a day or two 
absent. Things, of course, looked smaller to his 
adult eyes, but the rooms were so large and so finely 
proportioned that even the remembrances of the 
scale of childhood could not much dwarf them. The 
charm of fresh recognition was his too : the little 
high chair which he used to occupy when he came 
downstairs to sit by the dinner-table while the elders 
dined was still in its place by the mahogany side- 
board ; here was the table in his mother’s room at 
which he used to learn his reading-lesson, and there 
the gong which he used sometimes to be allowed by 
the butler to sound for lunch. This had always 
seemed to him an act of truly magnificent gener- 
osity, and he had often felt shy of asking such a 
favour, for the sacrifice of letting another sound the 
gong when one could keep that immense privilege 
for oneself was not a thing to suggest too often. 
But Sybil, as Blanche saw to her secret impatience 
and disapproval, gave but half an ear and a watery 
attention to these reminiscences ; and while Percy 


64 


The Money Market . 

was telling lier of some childish escapade the remem- 
brance of which the sight of staircase or hall called 
up in his mind, her eye would stray to other things 
and she would but answer him with a question as 
to a picture or a piece of furniture. The valuable 
and beautiful things in the place interested her far 
more in the light of themselves than as the scenery 
of Percy’s childhood, and it was only because the 
Gobelin tapestry was so fine that she appreciated 
the tragedy of the moment when Percy, as a small 
boy, had spilled an ink-bottle over the lower border. 
Blanche did her best to cover this want of sympathy 
by her own attention; but Percy could scarcely fail, 
she thought, to be conscious of Sybil’s indifference, 
and more than once, it seemed to her, he looked 
a trifle hurt and broke off in the middle of his story. 

But Sybil was not slow, and perceiving before 
long that to appear interested in what he was call- 
ing up of his childhood was clearly to be expected 
of her, she changed her behaviour, though to 
Blanche’s eye with a palpable effort, and asked 
strings of questions. 

“ And what splendid banisters ! ’ ’ she cried. ( ‘ Oh, 
Percy, I am sure you often slid down them when 
you were a child ; and, look, there is a knob at the 
end to stop you coming a bump ! At Otterbourne 
there is no knob, and so one of us had to stop at the 
bottom and break the fall of the next. But these 
are heavenly. I should like to slide down now. 
How lovely the river looks from the window ! Did 


05 


The Money Market. 

you often fish there ? Yes ? And they are carrying 
the hay in the meadow beyond ! Plow very late, is 
it not? But we have had such a wet summer. 
Percy, why didn’t we come down in our oldest 
clothes, and go and roll in the hay ? There is noth- 
ing so delicious, except that sharp ends get down 
one’s neck ; but I simply dare not face my maid if 
I rolled in the frock I have got on. I should never 
hear the end of it ; she bullies me frightfully. Oh, 
look, they are taking out tea on to the lawn, under 
that splendid cedar ! Pet’s have tea at once ; I am 
so hungry ; and then we can go for another turn 
about the house before we need drive back to Win- 
chester. I wish we were to stop down here for 
to-night, but I suppose we must get back for the 
Blackburns’ ball.” 

Sybil made tea for them with the most charming 
grace in the world, taking her place for the first 
time here as mistress of the house. But they had 
hardly begun, when Percy jumped hastily up with 
an exclamation and ran across the lawn back to the 
steps leading into the house. Standing at the door 
into the garden was the figure of a very old woman 
in a black dress, with a white cap on her head, but 
as upright as a girl, and with an air extraordinarily 
dignified. With a ringing cry, he caught her and 
kissed her upon both cheeks, and plunged into a 
torrent of talk. Sybil looked slightly annoyed, and 
turned to Blanche. 

u It is his old nurse, I suppose,” she said. “ Pie 


66 


The Money Market . 

told me she was still here. But what a very odd 
way to behave ! ” 

Blanche flushed. 

“ I think it is delightful of him,” she said. “ She 
nursed Percy’s father when he was a baby, and has 
lived with them ever since. Look, he is bringing 
her here. I am so glad. Oh, Sybil, what a dear 
old face she has ! ” 

The faces of very old people are almost always 
very beautiful to look on. Years for the most part ? 
whatever cynics and other silly people may say, 
bring tranquillity, and tranquillity is worth a score 
of Grecian noses. Blessington’s face was one of 
these, and though a sculptor could scarcely have 
made a beautiful rendering of it, it would have given 
a painter a fine opportunity. The deepest wrinkles 
on her face did not tell of anxiety or trouble, but 
only of the gentle inevitable passage of happy years. 
The habit of patience looked peacefully out of her 
brown eyes, and her mouth though fallen away and 
toothless was set in an expression of exquisite con- 
tent. Blanche felt herself smiling as she looked at 
her, and from her to Percy’s face, full of tender 
solicitude as he led her up to the tea-table. 

“ Sybil dear,” he said, “this is Blessington, who 
always used to make me take off my wet boots, and 
get in before it was dark for fear a gypsy should 
run away with me. And here is Miss Blanche, 
Blessington ; and you shall sit down and make tea 
for us all, just as you always used to.” 


67 


The Money Market. 

Sybil merely bowed to tlie old lady and took 
another place with a somewhat reserved air, and a 
manner as of gathering her skirts up ; but Blanche 
got up and shook hands in answer to the old lady’s 
courtesy. 

4 ‘ Eh, Master Percy,” she said, “ it’s a many years 
since I poured out tea for you ; but I don’t forget. 
You always took three lumps of sugar and made 
me put in the cream before I poured in the tea.” 

Percy laughed. 

“You are quite right, Blessington,” he said, 

‘ ‘but I have changed. I don’t take sugar now; 
but the rule about the cream still holds good.” 

Blessington smiled at him with an air of indul- 
gence. 

“ Eh, youVe been a good boy to-day,” she said, 
“You may have your three lumps.” 

And she dropped the three largest lumps she 
could find one by one into his cup. 

“This lady didn’t know howto make your tea,” 
she said, looking beamingly at Sybil. “ I can see 
from it that the cream was put in after the tea. It 
never mixes so well, made like that. ’ ’ 

Sybil merely raised her eyebrows, and did not 
take the trouble to reply, but Percy answered. 

“ She will have to learn, then, Blessington,” he 
cried, “for she will pour out tea for me, I hope, 
many hundred times !” 

The old nurse beamed again ; she had evidently 
not grasped the position before. 


68 The Money Market . 

“ But what a proud old woman I am this eve- 
ning,’ J she said, u to pour out tea again for Master 
Percy, and for the lady who is to be his wife. 
Bless you, my dear,” she said, “ and bless you, too, 
Miss ! Why, it seems only yesterday that I had to 
scold Master Percy for taking such notice of the 
gardener’s daughter, and he only nine years old, if 
he was that ! ” 

Sybil suddenly burst out into a peal of laughter. 

“ Oh, Percy,” she said, u how little we know of 
each other ! I had no idea your tastes ran in such 
directions,” and she laughed again. 

Blessington for a moment was delighted with the 
brilliant success of her little joke; but as Sybil 
broke out laughing for the second time, she looked 
a little puzzled, and her laughter died, and she 
filled up the teapot again with a face that did not 
smile. But she was almost less at a loss than 
Percy, and he looked at Sybil with blank amaze- 
ment. 

“ Oh, I am not jealous,” she went on, in a cool 
slow voice, “ but really until this moment I thought 
you were a little too good, dear ; and it is so nice to 
find a weak place. Now, at any rate, I have a han- 
dle against you. If you ever displease me or fail to 
do exactly as I wish, I shall make further enquiries 
from your nurse about the gardener’s daughter.” 

“You may make what enquiries you will, miss,” 
said Blessington with a sudden protective instinct, 
“ and you will find no one who will tell you aught 


The Money Market. 69 

but good about Master Percy. And now, Master 
Percy, with your leave, I will go to my own tea. 
I’ve filled the teapot up and there’s another good 
cup for everybody.” 

“Oh, don’t go, Blessington ! ” cried Percy. 
“ Why, you’ve only been here ten minutes.” 

“ My tea will be waiting,” said Blessington, with 
dignity, “and the others will be wondering where 
I am.” 

And she got up and walked across the lawn to 
the house. Once she looked back, but Percy was 
sitting with his back to her ; her thin wrinkled 
hands made one sudden, quick movement towards 
each other, and she disappeared into the door lead- 
ing to the basement. 

The three sat in silence for a moment, and Percy 
felt that Sybil had behaved altogether unfitly. 
What could have been easier than, by a few kindly 
words, to have made his old nurse happier than a 
hundred pounds would have made her? What 
could have been more uncalled for than such a 
piece of chaff about the gardener’s daughter? — 
harmless enough in itself, but so certain to be mis- 
understood by the dear simple old lady. For the 
moment he was, though half unconsciously, really 
troubled. The essence of good breeding was, 
surely, to behave nicely to one’s inferiors. He 
could not bear people not to show kindness and 
courtesy to servants ; and of all people in this world 
who had a right to expect all that was gentle from 


70 


The Money Market . 

him and his, Blessington, with her sixty years of 
service to his father and himself, was among the 
first. His innate gentleness of nature revolted from 
all discourtesy, and it seemed to him that dis- 
courtesy was quite unpardonable when directed at 
his old servant. Service and age above all things 
commanded respect from masters and from the 
young. Sybil, for her part, was radically in dis- 
cord : she did not like old people ; and she regarded 
servants as more or less useful machines, and the 
fact that Blessington had been Percy’s servant did 
not entitle her to kindness or consideration. To 
her inferiors she recognized no duty, to her equals 
she recognized merely the manner that enabled one 
to live in peace and quietness. The amenities and 
courtesy of her character she devoted exclusively 
to her superiors, those in fact who could be of use 
to her in some way. Moreover, she considered that 
the poor old lady had put herself out of her place. 
Who cared whether Percy had three lumps of sugar 
in his tea or not? And it was annoying to be 
turned out of one’s seat for a housekeeper, and to 
be told that one had not made tea in the best possi- 
ble manner. 

But it was not in the nature of things that Percy’s 
dissatisfaction with the adored could last above a 
moment, nor indeed that the adored could fail to 
see that he had been dissatisfied. The beautiful, 
splendid house over which she would so soon be 
mistress had, in a way, gone to her head. She had 


71 


The Money Market . 

been too intoxicated to be cautious, too elated to 
remember to be sympathetic ; and again, as when 
Percy told the stories of his childhood, she perceived 
and rectified her error. 

“What a dear, queer old woman!” she cried 
when Blessington was out of earshot — “a sort of 
old fairy godmother. And what beautiful white 
hair, Percy ! Why did you never tell me who was 
the real chatelaine of your house ? I am sure she 
must regard me as a horrid supplanter of her rights, 
but I shall not allow her to dislike me. I shall 
make her fall in love with me, and we will rule 
together and devote all our time and energy to 
taking care of our Master Percy. Some more tea, 
dear ? Three lumps or none ? I shall install my- 
self again. But wasn’t the old lady quick? She 
snapped me up in a moment when I alluded to the 
gardener’s daughter. Oh, Percy, I hope your wife 
will ever be as jealous for your good reputation ! 
But I start under a terrible handicap.” 

Percy’s brow cleared, and that infinitesimal 
moment in which he had found Sybil wanting 
vanished from his mind. She had merely been a 
little thoughtless, not grasping at once what were 
Blessington’s claims on her courtesy ; she had 
shown no unkindness or ill-breeding, and while her 
eyes laughed and danced at him he could not judge 
her. 

“Yes, give me another cup, Sybil,” he said. 
“ Ah, I am so happy to be here again ; and next 


72 


The Money Market . 

time I come here,” he added in a lower voice, “ I 
shall be even happier.” 

So from the two the cloud cleared. But Blanche’s 
vision, where Sybil was concerned, was not blinded, 
and she saw that for the moment Percy had been 
seriously vexed and that Sybil had disappointed 
him. She saw, too, that Sybil, though in a matter 
of infinitesimal moment indeed, had betrayed a 
radical defect. 

After tea they went back to the house again, 
and among other rooms visited the great kitchen 
which had once been the chapel of the Abbots- 
worthy monastery church. It was vaulted in 
the fan-shaped style, and the groining of the 
arches rose from queer grotesques at the juncture 
of wall and pointed ceiling; and here and there 
were angels’ heads, still retaining some remnants 
of paint. Percy mentioned a scheme which he 
had in his mind of building out a new kitchen 
and restoring this room to its old uses, or at any 
rate leaving it empty, but Sybil did not sym- 
pathize. 

u It would be terribly expensive,” she said ; “ and, 
oh, Percy, think how cold it would be ! If I were 
you, I would begin by redecorating the drawing- 
room. That is far more needed.” 

A few doors from this, down the basement corri- 
dor, was Blessington’s room, and as there was some 
fine linen-pattern panelling to be seen there, they 
went in. The old lady was sitting by the window 


The Money Market . 73 

doing some plain sewing, and she got up and 
courtesied as they entered. 

Sybil, remembering the shade of annoyance 
which had crossed Percy’s face at tea, at once laid 
herself out to be gracious. 

“We have come to see your beautiful room, Mrs. 
Blessington,” she said. “No, no; you shall sit 
down,” and she gently pushed the old lady back 
into her chair, “ and never again must you treat me 
with ceremony. Percy and I are your children. 
Yes, indeed, the panelling is splendid. And is this 
where Percy used to have his tea with you when he 
was a little boy ? We must have some great talks 
when I come down here in the autumn, Mrs. Bless- 
ington, and you shall tell me all about the naughty 
things he did when he was small. Do you hear, 
Percy ? Blessington is going to tell me tales of the 
mischief you used to get into, and I shall tell her 
tales of the unkind and naughty things you do now 
to me. So we shall have plenty to talk about. 
This shall be my ark of refuge. When you are 
cross to me I shall always come here.” 

Blessington was mollified at once. 

“ Eh, my lady,” she said, “ I like talking over 
all Master Percy used to do. It seems to bring 
back the old times ! ” 

Sybil smiled with the most winning graciousness. 

“ And there will be pleasant new times for you 
again, I hope,” she said ; “ Percy and I will live 
here a great deal. And you will send me up to 


74 


The Money Market . 

London some of that beautiful butter we nad at 
tea ? I never tasted such good butter. I can never 
eat the London butter ; I am sure it is made of some 
horrible stuff. Well, we must be going if we are to 
catch our train. Good-bye, and you must promise 
to pour out tea for us again the very first day we are 
here.” 

Percy was charmed with Sybil’s amende ; but 
Blanche thought she caught a sort of triumphant 
glance from Sybil which seemed to say, “ See how 
easily I make the queer old lady adore me.” 

It was lucky for Sybil’s satisfaction with her own 
behaviour that she could not read Blessington’s 
thoughts as she watched the carriage drive away. 

“She’s piettier than a picture,” she thought; 
“but I wish it had been Miss Blanche.” 


CHAPTER VL 
Blanche's Difficulty* 

Partly because of and partly in spite of their 
long intimacy, it had never occurred either to 
Blanche or Percy to fall in love with the other. 
They had known each other so long and so well 
that the chances of any feeling more passionate 
than very cordial friendship springing up at any 
moment between them were necessarily small. But 
now, after Percy’s engagement to Sybil, Blanche 
began to find that it was one of the duties of a 
sister to listen to her brother’s rhapsodies on the 
subject of the adored. Hitherto she had agreed, 
disagreed, or quarrelled with him on all subjects 
under the sun ; but it was apparent at once that 
this subject was not to be treated as any other, 
but that whenever it came up it was absolutely 
essential to appear to agree with him fervently, to 
suggest even herself fresh evidences of perfection, 
and she found the acceptance of this part a little 
difficult Frankly, she was not at all fond of Sybil, 
though at first she could have given no more defi- 
nite reason for her want of sympathy with her than 
was assigned to the unpopular Dr. Fell. But by 
degrees her vague dislike and distrust of her took 
form and outline. She suspected that she was 

75 


76 


The Money Market . 

shallow, and where Percy saw depth of feeling*, 
Blanche saw only a pair of beautiful eyes. The 
shallowness she covered partly by those glances, 
partly by a calculating sort of sharpness, and of 
this she had given Blanche an excellent example 
in her behaviour to Blessington at tea and after- 
wards. What all this amounted to was, that Sybil 
was insincere, and once granting that, there arose 
the aw r ful question, “ Who was the real Sybil ? ” 
But the idea of Percy’s being able to even tolerate 
insincerity in any one was so absurd that Blanche 
had to allow the possibility of two conclusions — 
either that she herself was radically and hopelessly 
at fault in her estimation of Sybil, or, what would 
be really tragic, that Percy was blind to her insin- 
cerity. To do Blanche justice, she longed to believe 
that she herself was wrong about it. Sybil’s whole 
conduct on the day they spent at Abbotsworthy 
seemed to her one piece of acting, and not good 
acting. She was enamored of the beauty and splen- 
dour of the house, — so far her emotions had been 
real ; her head was filled with pictures of herself 
entertaining great parties of smart people in those 
palatial rooms ; all else, Percy included, was for- 
gotten, and recalled only by an effort, and an ob- 
vious effort. She had not a grain of sentiment, so 
thought Blanche, in her composition, and conse- 
quently no sympathy for the sentiment shown by 
others. Her mind was playing a triumphal march 
in C major in honor of herself, and it was with a 


77 


The Money Market . 

palpable impatience that she stopped the orchestra 
and stumbled through a line or two of her love 
duet. 

So far Blanche’s feeling about Sybil was imper- 
sonal. She judged her, or at any rate believed she 
judged her, as she would have judged any one else 
who was indifferent to her. But at that point, out 
of her pity for Percy, there began to spring, all 
unconsciously, the first shoots of another feeling. 
The protective instinct which women have for 
men, which is no less real than that which men 
have for women with whom they have bonds of 
friendship, began to sprout in her. She would, 
with willingness and gratitude for the opportunity, 
have sacrificed herself to work the redemption of 
Sybil, and so to save Percy ; but no one demanded 
or even made permissible any sacrifice. He was 
radiantly happy, he desired nothing more than 
what he had, and he poured out his happiness to 
her in torrents of talk of which the burden was 
Sybil ! Sybil ! Sybil ! 

To Blanche the burden was beginning to grow 
heavy. Blanche’s conscience was a first-rate ma- 
chine, but as yet it brought no shadow of accusation 
against her. She had always been fond of Percy, 
she was so still, and it did not occur to her that 
any change was taking place in the quality of her 
affection for him. Furthermore she was analyti- 
cally inclined, and fond of the dissection of com- 
plicated feelings, and her feeling towards Sybil 


78 


The Money Market . 

was certainly complicated. Thus slie let herself 
often dwell on the question ; and the more she 
dwelt on it, the more it troubled her. At one time 
she would label her with most uncomplimentary 
epithets — she was insincere, her affection for Percy 
was an affection of a purely selfish kind, and she 
was a poseuse; at another time she tried to see her 
through Percy’s eyes, and the insincerity was capa- 
ble of being regarded as a quick sympathy, a power 
of throwing herself into the interests and aims of 
others, in particular of him — and what reason had 
Blanche for saying that these were not genuine ? 
She was undeniably pretty, she was almost univer- 
sally popular, and in the verdict of many there is 
truth. Then suddenly the balance would swing 
back, crash would go the unstable fabric she had 
raised, and Blanche w T ould find herself saying with 
great conviction and perfect sincerity, “I hate 
her.” 

On one occasion, some week or so after the expe- 
dition to Abbotsworthy, Percy and she were sitting 
together after lunch on the balcony of the Stoak- 
leys’ drawing-room in Carlton Terrace overlooking 
St. James’ Park. The air was heavy and thundery, 
a leaden sky brooded over the town, and a storm 
seemed imminent. In front of the remoter clouds 
hung others with the hard ragged edges that be- 
token lightning — some a dense purple-violet, others 
copper-colored and metallic, the gongs of thunder. 
Blanche had been making bitter and censorious 


The Money Market . 79 

remarks about the uncertainty of the English 
climate. 

“Two days ago we were all shivering,” she said, 
“and one day we had a hailstorm. It is July, re- 
member; and that day I wore fur, which I only 
wore twice last winter, and yet could not keep 
warm. Then within the last weeks there have 
been several hard frosts, some nineties in the shade ; 
and to-day is like the Black Hole of Calcutta, with 
an occasional blast of Sirocco thrown in.” 

“That is the charm of the climate, not its defect,” 
said Percy. “It is like a Neapolitan ice, you never 
know what you are coming to next, and it is all 
delightful.” 

Blanche pointed tragically to the sky, or rather 
to where the sky should have been. 

“I see no charm in a hot grey blanket,” she 
remarked. 

“Why, it is splendid,” said Percy. “Took at 
the gallery of effects. Look at the trees, which 
are hanging their leaves like rows of sick people. 
See how still the air is here, but over in front of 
Buckingham Palace there is a whirlwind ; do you 
see the dust rising to the tops of the elms like a 
pillar? There, the squall has struck the water and 
the mirror of the reflection is shattered. Look at 
the Victoria tower against that copper cloud. It 
looks as if it was made of cast-iron. That is always 
the way before thunder, and so few artists under- 
stand that. They give one lightning bursting out 


80 


The Money Market . 

of swirling vapours. It is never so. Lightning 
comes out of hard jagged clouds through a per- 
fectly transparent atmosphere. There are a hun- 
dred beautiful things to see. And then two days 
ago, when we had, as you said, a hard frost, did 
you ever see anything so divine as the clearness of 
the morning? Oh, I like variety ! ” 

“ It seems to me insincere,” said Blanche, think- 
ing of Sybil. 

“That is a cruel interpretation,” lie said. “A 
person may have many moods, and yet each one is 
sincere. In fact, moods are a great evidence of sin- 
cerity. A man who goes through life with a hard, 
set face, if he is sincere, is scarcely human, and one 
concludes his absolute consistency is an effort. 
But a beautiful variety of moods is one of the 
chiefest charms of certain characters. Sybil, for 
instance — but I can’t pretend to draw logical con- 
clusions where she is concerned, for I am dazzled. 
However, you would not think that her religious 
emotions were very keen. Yet I had told her last 
Saturday evening that I should go to service at St. 
Paul’s, and she said she would come with me. We 
had a beautiful choral communion by Wesley, and 
in the Gloria, when they were singing ‘We praise 
Thee, we bless Thee,’ I looked at her, and her eyes 
were full of tears. No doubt it was a mood ; no 
doubt the mood passes, but while it is there, there 
can be no doubt of its sincerity. How impossible 
that she should pose, to me, too, of all people? She 


81 


The Money Market . 

has a most extraordinary power of sympathy. Do 
you remember liow delightful she was to Blessing- 
ton down at Abbots worthy ? ’ ’ 

“While we were having tea, do you mean?” 
asked Blanche, not without purpose, but wonder- 
ing whether her reception of Blessington had gone 
from Percy’s mind. But he answered at once : 

“At tea? No. What happened at tea ? I mean 
when we went to the housekeeper’s room to see the 
linen-pattern panelling.” 

Blanche found it hard to be loyal at this point, 
but she replied bravely, though feebly : 

“ Yes, she has a wonderfully winning manner.” 

“Of course she is by herself,” said Percy, “only 
she is the best instance I know of what I mean by 
saying that variety can be perfectly sincere. But 
there are plenty of instances.” 

Blanche frowned. 

“But Percy,” she said, “it always seems to me 
that manner — I am speaking quite impersonally, 
of course — is like style in literature. In itself it 
may be beautiful, but it may be very dangerous. 
The book itself may be poisonous, and if so the 
attractiveness of its style is an evil instrument. So 
is manner in a poisonous person.” 

“Oh, I disagree,” said Percy. “If you read a 
book critically, in the only way in fact in which 
any work of art should be looked at, what you 
admire is the beauty of the presentation. Even a 
line presentation of a repulsive subject is, to the 
6 


82 


The Money Market . 

critic, perfectly without blame. All subjects are 
subject-matter for Art; but it requires a Flaubert 
to make a masterpiece out of the material of 
Madame Bovary. It is by style alone we should 
judge.” 

“Then apply that to people,” said Blanche, “and 
you will get the valuable result, that as long as a 
man poisons his father gracefully we have no busi- 
ness to condemn the act. The style saves it. Oh 
Percy, what a fine moralist you would have made !” 

Percy laughed. 

“I don’t say that at all,” he said. “You can 
concern yourself either with Art or morals, but 
you must not mix them up. Just now we are 
speaking of Art, which, though it has a tremend- 
ously strict code of its own, does not recognize the 
Decalogue as binding on the behaviour of its sub- 
jects. Still, speaking from the moral point of 
view, if you insist on my weighing the Art against 
the other, I think there is no beauty in the style of 
the thing which can possibly justify poisoning one’s 
father.” 

“You don’t really mean that!” exclaimed 
Blanche. 

“ I do, indeed. I may be wrong ; but supposing 
the thing is transferred, let us say, to the Stage — 
that is, to the realm of Art, — we do not stop to con- 
sider whether the actor could possibly have been 
justified in poisoning his father, we are only con- 
cerned as to whether he acted the scene well. We 


83 


The Money Market . 

accept the fact that the dramatist has a right to put 
a poisoner on the stage.” 

“Oh, Percy, you don’t see what I mean!” she 
cried. ‘ ‘ Let me begin at the beginning. Do you 
regard your fellow- creatures from an artistic or a 
moral point of view?” 

Percy thought for a moment. 

1 Most people are so inartistic, that you cannot 
regard them from an artistic point of view at all,” 
he said. “But very few people are so immoral 
that you cannot regard them from a moral point of 
view. So I suppose one regards one’s fellow-crea- 
tures from the moral point of view.” 

“You are talking like a decadent ora cynic,” 
said Blanche. “They are equally detestable.” 

“No, there you are wrong. Also, you are 
allowing yourself to speak strongly. The cynic 
is the lowest of God’s creatures, without any ques- 
tion. I am not — I assert I am not — among the 
lowest of God’s creatures ; I know many lower.” 

“That is beside the point,” said Blanche. 
“What you have admitted is, that you regard your 
fellows from a moral point of view. Then you 
cannot judge them as you would judge a book; 
style cannot save them.” 

“Well, if I grant that, what then?” asked 
Percy. “I don’t see what you are driving at. 
Why are you falling upon me with such extraordi- 
nary vigour ? ” 

Then like a flash it came over Blanche that 


84 The Money Market . 

what slie was driving at was Sybil. It was her 
style, her manner that had been in her mind — the 
wish to force out of Percy’s own mouth, though 
he should not know of whom he was talking, that 
it had been her graciousness to Blessington, her 
emotion, springing from no deep feeling, which, 
causing her eyes to brim with tears at the Com- 
munion service, had seemed to him so convincing 
a proof, if proof were needed, of the courtesy and 
high desires of her heart. With the instantaneous- 
ness of thought she perceived this, admitted it to 
herself, and asked herself with swift and splendid 
honesty why she was so anxious to believe in 
Sybil’s heartlessness. And in the same flash her 
inner consciousness proposed a reply, “ Because 
I am jealous of her.” And with that her face 
burned. 

She turned Percy’s question aside, and the talk 
drifted off on other topics. They were all of them 
— that is to say Blanche and Lady Stoakley, Lady 
Otterbourne, Sybil and Percy — going to Baireuth 
for the first cycle of the performance in the begin- 
ning of August, and Blanche wondered whether 
she would be wise to go. The flash of self-revela- 
tion which had just occurred had dazzled and dis- 
gusted her, and she felt that she would have to 
consider her actions where Percy and Sybil were 
concerned much more carefully for the future. A 
few minutes afterwards large hot rain-drops began 
to fall from the overcharged clouds, and Percy hur- 


85 


The Money Market . 

ried away in order to get home before the storm 
began. Had he known it, he had left another 
storm in Blanche’s heart, imminent, threatening to 
burst. 

That evening it so happened that her father and 
mother were both dining out, and she was left 
alone at home. She dined by herself, and after 
dinner went up to the drawing-room, threw the 
windows open, for it was still stifling, and, drawing 
her chair outside into the thick hot darkness, had 
an honest half-hour with herself. 

She was disposed at first to treat that little 
inward voice which had suggested that she was 
jealous of Sybil, as an ignorant and impertinent 
bystander, the cry of a street boy; but if it was, 
why had she been startled? Had the accusation 
meant nothing at all to her, there would have been 
no reason in allowing for the possibility of its truth 
— it would have been unintelligible, a message in 
an unknown tongue ; yet, in consequence of it, she 
was looking out into the darkness determined to 
argue the matter out, yet shrinking from it with an 
uncontrollable shudder. Decidedly, the suggestion 
had come from some part of herself, some mean 
and uncharitable part perhaps ; but still, sugges- 
tions from any quarter ought to be given serious 
consideration. Supposing some other of her friends 
had been engaged to Sybil, would the question 
whether Sybil was insincere or not have appeared so 
vitally important to her ? She knew it would not. 


86 


The Money Market. 

She leaned back in her chair, and clasped 
her hands behind her head. It was a favorite atti- 
tude with her, and, her body being completely 
at rest, she felt that her mind would move more 
freely. 

Well, if the fact that Sybil was to marry Percy 
was more important than if she was to marry some- 
body else, where was the reason for it ? Certainly 
because she liked Percy more than she liked any- 
one else ; or, if not that, because he deserved a 
better wife than anyone else. Supposing then — to 
give herself every chance — that Percy was engaged, 
not to Sybil, but to an epitome of all the virtues, 
would she be satisfied? And the answer came 
instantly, “No! the epitome of all the virtues 
would be a prig.” 

These thoughts might be salutary, they were 
certainly unpleasant. The inevitable conclusion 
was, that she liked Percy more than she liked any- 
body else. And in the darkness Blanche felt the 
blood rush to her face, and she stood up. 

“ I am a wicked little fool ! ’ ’ she said aloud. 

This point being settled, she became practical. 
Which was the greater evil — to avoid Percy, and 
thus make herself ridiculous and incomprehensible 
to him and to all those who knew how intimate 
they had been ; or to put a stopper on all her 
internal nonsense, and continue her lines of frank 
comradeship towards him ? She had some idea at 
the moment that the question was crucial, but she 


87 


The Money Market . 

decided almost without thought. It would be too 
absurd to appear to break with him, it was also 
inconceivable. Then, as her thinking was done, 
she went to the piano and made hay of the overture 
to the Meistersmgers . 


CHAPTER VII. 

Parsifal. 

A FORTNIGHT afterwards they left London for 
Baireuth. They were to stay, not at the place itself, 
but at the village of Fantasie, half an hour’s drive 
off. As a party they were very typical of other 
parties. Lady Otterbourne went because she was 
tired with the London season and meant to have an 
idle week ; Sybil, who was musical in a kind of 
second-hand manner and admired what she was told 
to admire, went because she felt she ought to go (it 
was so tiresome when everyone was talking about 
Baireuth in the autumn not to have been) ; Lady 
Stoakley went because everybody else went ; while 
Blanche and Percy went because both of them 
regarded Wagner as the supreme artist of all the 
ages. Percy had been twice before, Blanche never, 
and she looked forward to it with the awe of a pil- 
grim going to Jerusalem. She expected a sort of 
revelation, and an initiation into mysteries. 

They arrived at Fantasie on Saturday, and the 
first performance of Parsifal was to be on the next 
day. They drove into Baireuth, breathing deep of 
the scent of the pinewoods, and lunched there and 
strolled about the gardens. Before long they heard 
the motif of the first act sounded on the horns, and 
they went back to the theatre. Lady Otterbourne, 
88 


89 


The Money Market . 

Sybil, and Lady Stoakley liad found several people 
whom they knew, and they were talking and laugh- 
ing together as they walked towards the theatre. 
Blanche and Percy strolled behind, and as they 
entered Blanche touched him suddenly on the arm. 

“I am frightened, Percy,” she said. “Suppos- 
ing I am disappointed ! ” 

He smiled. 

“You will not be disappointed, Blanche,” he 
replied. 

They were among the last to enter the theatre, 
and almost immediately after they had got to their 
seats the great silence, like some flowing tide grow- 
ing deeper and deeper every moment, began to fill 
the theatre. Blanche felt it was like diving down 
and down into still black waters. Gradually the 
house grew darker, and at the last, from the unseen 
orchestra, came the first notes of the prelude. After 
the phrase had been given out, it was again repeated, 
covered as with a veil by the rising arpeggios on 
the violins, and borne away. Again it was wailed 
out in the minor, and again carried off ; and after a 
pause the Dresden “Amen” fell full and firm on 
the ear. Then followed the seven notes of the 
“Grail” motif, repeated and again repeated, but 
falling the third time into the minor. Once again 
the “ Amen ” followed, and then the armies of sound 
began to collect and gather ; stream after stream fed 
the river, each whispering “The Grail,” till at last 
the roll was complete, and the air was thick with 


90 


The Money Market. 

that one melody, rippling in the treble, marching 
through the middle octaves, thundered in the base, 
and echoed again above. Soon the probation and 
temptation began ; broken reminiscences and half- 
phrases of what had been complete and established 
died in the air ; a dozen times the violins tried to 
tell the story of the love-feast, but faltered and 
failed, and shivered into cries of wailing only half 
articulate. The struggle seemed hopeless ; yet they 
struggled on, till after the darkness came day, and 
on the wings of the morning salvation, and at the 
end once more the “Amen” blessed and crowned 
the redeemed and ransomed. 

Blanche gave one deep sigh, and half turned in 
her seat to Percy ; she could barely see him, but 
from the other side she heard Sybil whisper : “ Oh, 
Percy, isn’t it pretty? n and she could just see that 
he did not turn his head even, or reply to her. Next 
moment the curtain rose. 

When they came out for the hour’s interval, 
Blanche could not speak. She only wanted to go 
away somewhere in the woods alone, away from 
Sybil’s rapturous and frequently expressed pleasure 
in the drama. 

“ Oh, it was quite wonderful ! ” she cried enthu- 
siastically to Percy. “And did you see the dear 
little bier of green leaves they made for the swan 
which Parsifal killed ? I thought that was so sweet 
of them. Poor Amfortas, I was so sorry for him ; 
and there was a wasp on Parsifal’s bare arm, I 


91 


The Money Market . 

noticed, Percy, and lie didn’t stir a muscle ; it was 
crawling up him from wrist to shoulder. Wasn’t 
that extraordinary of him?” 

Percy frowned; something in this speech set his 
teeth on edge. 

“Of course Vandyk is a real artist,” he said ; “it 
would have been much more extraordinary if he 
had moved.” 

“Well, I should have screamed,” said Sybil; “I 
can’t think how he managed to keep still.” 

Percy did not reply, and his eyes wandered to 
Blanche who was sitting a little apart. 

“Come, we must have dinner,” he said. “Let 
us go to the restaurant. Well, Blanche, and did 
you find it disappointing? ” 

Blanche looked at him a moment without reply- 
ing. Then, “ No, I was not disappointed,” she said, 
and the soberness of her reply pleased him. 

Sybil and her mother were in the best of spirits, 
and girt themselves about with the atmosphere of 
the Savoy restaurant. The Harrogates had a table 
close to theirs, and they shouted a rechauffee of the 
latest gossip across to each other, and posted each 
other up in all that had not taken place since they 
saw each other last in London : 

“Yes, it was really true that the Willoughby 
marriage was off, and was it not terrible for poor 
Lily ? She had to send all the diamonds back; but 
after all it was quite her own fault, and if she 
would behave so stupidly, of course no man could 


92 The Money Market . 

stand it. Why, only the other day down at Car- 
shalton ” 

Then followed a series of enigmatic allusions, 
and screams of laughter. Very sad, was it not? 
but really too funny for words. The conversation 
soon turned on Wagner, and Lady Harrogate said 
it made her feel quite uncomfortable, as if someone 
had been playing music in the middle of her 
stomach. Her party roared with laughter, and Mrs. 
Montgomery, who was with them, also confessed 
that she felt as if she had swallowed a musical-box. 

They drove home in the cool of the evening to 
Fantasie. The Harrogates had a supper party after 
the opera, and persuaded Lady Otterbourne and 
Sybil without much difficulty to stop for an hour 
or two ; the others went back alone. Lady Stoakley 
was tired, and after supper she sat with them only 
a few minutes, and then went off to bed, leaving 
the two seated in the verandah of the little house 
which Percy had taken for his party. For a long 
while they sat in silence ; but each was strangely 
excited, and each strangely conscious of the other. 
Percy knew exactly how Blanche was feeling, and 
a fresh bond of sympathy had been created between 
them. Great excitement and exaltation of the 
senses is certainly communicated without speech, 
and it seemed to Blanche that it was a pity to talk ; 
for they were sharing each other’s emotion in a new 
and startling manner, and the knowledge that Percy 
and she were partners of each other’s unspoken 


93 


The Money Market . 

thoughts made her thrill and tingle. But the strain 
of the silence grew unbearable, and soon she got 
up and leant on the balcony in front of where he 
was sitting. 

“ Oh, Percy! n she said, and no more. 

“ Yes, I know, I know,” he replied, feeling also 
relief in speech. “It was music itself, was it not? 
and you have found out that hitherto you have been 
hearing only a translation of music. I felt it like 
that when I came here first ; and I think each time 
I have heard it, I have felt it more. One is like a 
deaf man made to hear, and I am too happy even 
to cry.” 

“It was not only a revelation of music,” said 
Blanche ; “ it was a revelation of everything, and in 
particular a revelation of oneself. It seemed to 
show me all sorts of experiences which I have lived 
through, but of which hitherto I have been uncon- 
scious. Once, I don’t know when, I was Parsifal, 
once I was Kundry ; I have suffered with the pain 
of Amfortas ; I have been a knight in the worship 
of the Holy Grail ; I have starved for the Salutation 
of the Lord, like Titurel ; I have been Klingsor in 
his magic castle ; I have waited for the long-delayed 
return of Parsifal, and one Good Friday, when the 
hawthorn was in bloom, he came and knelt in 
prayer by the spring. I was there: I saw him.” 

“Ah ! you have felt that, too,” said Percy, rising 
and standing by her. “More than ever to-day I 
have been conscious of it. Who am I? Am I Percy 


94 The Money Market . 

Gerard? Am I one of those that we have been see- 
ing in Parsifal? Indeed, I do not know.” 

“ I cannot tell you,” said she. “ Oh, Percy, this 
won’t do ! Has Wagner bewitched us all ? What has 
happened to me? Is it a trick? My nerves are all 
strung up tight and twanging. I am terribly ex- 
cited ; I could scream or burst into tears with hap- 
piness. I could paint a picture or write a poem or 
compose an opera. All these, and all at once, and 
now.” 

Percy laughed. 

“ You probably could, if it could be done in a 
moment. Achievement is nothing but a passion- 
ate effort. So few people achieve, simply because 
so few people are capable of passionate effort. If 
one could only keep it up ! But it is not given one 
to live on the edge of one’s limitations. Something 
gives way — and we collapse, like a pricked bubble. 
You look very tired to-night. Excitement is the 
most tiring thing in the world. You will probably 
sleep to-night as if you were dead.” 

“ Sleep ! I couldn’t sleep. Why should I sleep ? 
I want to run and howl. I have been shown a 
mystery ; I am initiated. I have penetrated into a 
realm which I never dreamed of before. Sound! 
There is nothing in the world so marvellous! ” 

Percy turned suddenly and faced her. 

“ Blanche, I wish we had come here alone,” he 
said. “Just you and I. Eady Otterbourne doesn’t 
care a rap for it : and Sybil, poor darling, she tries 


95 


The Money Market . 

so hard to be appreciative, and she appreciates it all 
wrong. She said it was pretty ! Pretty ! The over- 
ture to Parsifal pretty ! Of course I love having her 
here, but I would sooner be anywhere else in the 
world with her. Quite suddenly to-day I felt that 
there was a great piece of my life— a great piece of 
me — in which she had no share. At this moment 
that oppresses me terribly. Away from here I shall 
not remember it. But here ” 

Blanche made an immense call on her loyalty. 
For an ignoble woman, for one who did not recog- 
nize the great, clean human distinction between 
what is right and what is wrong, it would have 
been a dangerous moment. For her it was only a 
difficult one. She laughed lightly and naturally. 

“ Happy are the couple who only are not in ac- 
cord about Baireuth,” she said. “But what in 
Heaven’s name did you expect? You were wanting 
an impossibility. She is not musical, you must 
have known that.” 

Percy shook his head. 

“It was not the music she did not appreciate,” 
he said. “ It was the — the It, the whole thing, 
Parsifal in fact. She did not know it was there. 
Oh, Blanche, it is so nice to be able to talk to you 
like this ! ” 

Blanche felt a secret and, her conscience told her, 
an evil joy in finding that Percy had perceived the 
inability of Sybil to appreciate It. She disliked 
herself for being capable of such a feeling, but it 


96 


The Money Market . 

was there ; she was ashamed of it, and she hugged 
it close. Percy had not the smallest twinge of con- 
science in so speaking. He might as well have felt 
ashamed of himself for telling Blanche that Sybil 
did not care about the della Robbia heads on the 
church of the Innocenti. At the same time he had 
felt acute disappointment at her criticisms on the 
first act. He had hoped almost against hope that 
it would have impressed her differently. Even if 
only she had said nothing he would with the ut- 
most faith have credited her with thoughts that 
were too deep for words. If she had only given him 
a look, a pressure of the hand, a blank cheque as it 
were, he would have filled it up to the tune of mil- 
lions. But she had been banale ; she had singled out 
the wasp on Vandykes arm, the bier of green leaves 
for the swan, as the subjects of her praise. They were 
admirable, and they had impressed her ; that was good, 
but it was like commenting on the exquisite shape 
of the little toe of the Hermes of Praxiteles, on the 
moment of seeing the statue for the first time, when 
the lips should have been dumb and the eyes dim. 

Neither spoke for a moment or two. Then said 
Percy : 

“ Blanche, I believe I am the happiest fellow on 
this earth. We are here at Baireuth, and each day, 
so sweet in its passing, brings me closer to Septem- 
ber. And it makes things even completer that I 
have a friend like you. Ah! they are back early ; 
I hear their wheels.” 


97 


The Money Market . 

They had arranged to spend eight days at Bai- 
reutli, thus seeing the whole cycle once, and Parsifal 
twice ; but next day, at lunch, both Sybil and Lady 
Otterbourne were eager to stay another week, if 
Percy would be very sweet and stop too. 

They had both enjoyed their supper-party tre- 
mendously, and Lady Harrogate, who was one of 
those women who are really a sort of “ Extra Spe- 
cial,” with all particulars of scandalous news, had 
simply been too amusing for words. Her party, it 
appeared, was also going to stop a fortnight, and 
life in this dear little Bavarian village was quite 
charming, especially since Percy had brought an 
admirable cook. 

“ It would be so delicious to see each opera 
twice,” said Sybil ; “ and if they do them as well as 
they did Parsifal yesterday, I should like to hear 
one eveiy day for the rest of my life. Oh, it was 
too beautiful ! ” and she helped herself largely to 
some pate . 

“There is the question of tickets, ” said Percy. 
“I don’t know if we can get five tickets for the 
next cycle, but I will enquire to-day.’ 1 

“Oh, never mind if you can’t,” said Sybil. 
“In any case the Harrogates are stopping on, and 
they have arranged a couple of picnics next week 
on the days that Tristan and the Meistersingers 
are to be given, and mother and I thought that we 
would go to them.” 

Percy sipped his glass of wine without replying. 

7 


98 


The Money Market . 

Sybil was not quite ingenuous, lie thought. Why 
not have said at once, that she wished to stop on 
in order to go to the picnics ? 

“Well, let’s see how we all feel about it,” he 
said. “Which performance do you want to go to 
next week, Lady Otterbourne ? ” 

“I don’t want to go to any,” she said, frankly. 
“ I want to go to all this week ; but next week I 
should like to walk in those pinewoods and go to 
picnics. I am perfectly straightforward. I want 
to stop at Baireutli, and hear no music.” 

“ There is nothing so admirable as knowing one’s 
mind,” laughed Percy. “And you, Lady Stoak- 
ley ? ” 

“I must go back on Monday, as I arranged,” 
she said ; “ for Stoakley and I are going to stay at 
Carshalton before we go to Scotland, which will be 
on the eleventh.” 

“But you will leave Blanche?” said Percy. 

“If Blanche wishes, and Lady Otterbourne will 
be so kind as to be chaperone.” 

“ Delighted,” said Lady Otterbourne. 

“And you, Blanche ? ” asked Percy. 

“ I should like to stop and go to all the perform- 
ances,” said Blanche. 

“Good. Sybil?” 

“I should like to see Parsifal once more,” said 
Sybil, “and — and I think Tannkauser and Lohen- 
grin twice. And on the other days I will go to the 
picnics, I think, Percy. I hear Tristan is so very 


99 


The Money Market . 

difficult and long, and Lady Harrogate said the 
Meistersingers was one long banking from begin- 
ning to end.” 

Percy smiled. 

‘‘Very good. But ask Lady Harrogate if she 
doesn’t remember a song called the ‘ Preislied.’ 
I’ll see about the tickets when we go in to-day. 
We must start in half-an-hour.” 

“That is sweet of you, Percy,” said Sybil. 
“ You ’ve no idea how I enjoyed Parsifal, How I 
look forward to next Sunday ! And it is Tann- 
hauser to-day, is it not ? I long to see Tannhauser 
again ; it is perfectly thrilling.” 

There was found to be no difficulty about getting 
fresh tickets, as some half-dozen had been returned 
at the last moment, and all but Lady Stoakley 
stopped on. Lady Otterbourne since Sybil’s engage- 
ment had completely buried the hatchet as far as 
she herself was concerned ; the other had failed, and 
she had no animosity left against the vanquished. 
She had also another reason for wishing to stay on, 
which she had mentioned as yet to nobody. Her 
bill with its terrific accumulation of interest fell 
due on the fifteenth of October, and it had been 
now arranged that Percy and Sybil were to leave 
England directly after the marriage and spend six 
weeks cruising in the yacht. They both loved the 
sea and they had planned to be away till early in 
November. Lady Otterbourne had rather opposed 
the scheme; she said it was far more sensible and 


100 


The Money Market . 

civilised to go and live in somebody else’s bouse 
for a week or two, but slie could not reasonably 
press ber objections. It followed tben that wben 
once tbe marriage was over sbe would not see Percy 
till after ber bill became due, and it was necessary 
somehow, since sbe bad no means of meeting it, to 
make known to bim her position before. Already 
sbe was disgusted at ber own cowardice in not tell- 
ing him all in July ; and already tbe thought of tbe 
worst moment to come, since sbe bad shirked tbe 
bad one tben, was oppressive to her. When they 
left Baireuth they were all going to stay at various 
bouses, and, much as sbe disliked tbe imminence 
of ber confession, sbe realized that it was better to 
get it over here than to have it banging round ber 
neck, and perhaps run tbe risk of not being able to 
introduce the subject. 

Percy, for bis part, was delighted to stop. He 
bad nothing particular to do till tbe middle of 
August, and he would have waited, if be had not 
been otherwise engaged, for as many cycles as pos- 
sible. It was also very interesting to him psycho- 
logically to watch tbe effect of tbe dramas on 
Blanche. He bad always known sbe was extremely 
musical, though hitherto sbe bad not beard very 
much, and Baireuth seemed to have moved ber to 
tbe bottom of ber soul. Every day sbe grew more 
vivid ; sbe noted fresh points of beauty and strength 
in tbe interweaving of drama, spectacle and music, 
and accounted for ber own impressions with an ex- 


The Money Market . 101 

traordinary reasonableness. She had an unerring 
instinct for what was good, but, and this is much 
rarer, she could say why she found it so. 

She seemed, for instance, that evening after they 
had seen Tannhauser , to answer the riddle of the 
drama, to give a justification for what Percy, with 
all his love of Art and freedom from morals where 
Art was concerned, had always considered a diffi- 
culty. 

“ The whole thing is immoral in intention,” he 
had said to her as they were driving home that 
evening. “ For myself, as you know, I do not take 
the line of condemning L,ady Macbeth ; but, so I 
think, because she lives in the horror of her deed. 
It is not so here ; Venusberg in this music is always 
lighthearted and beautiful. Wagner never sur- 
passed that froth and effervescence in pure beauty ; 
it is like sunlight striking on the fizzing pool below 
a waterfall, and yet I find myself saying that the 
thing is immoral. It is chucked at us in the most 
glaring and indecent juxtaposition to the ‘ Pilgrim’s 
March,’ which is beautiful certainly, but sombre 
and ascetic. I cannot help wondering which way 
the artist’s sympathies lay, and the answer is inev- 
itable ; and in criticising a work of art, that is an 
absurd attitude to take.” 

Blanche shook her head. 

“ Oh, you are wrong from beginning to end, 
Percy,” she said. u The juxtaposition is violent, I 
know, but it is completely strong. And oh, how 


102 


The Money Market. 

healthy real strength is ! It cannot even be anything 
else than healthy. Strength always, always, always 
implies perfect health. It cannot exist without. 
But I do not mean by strength what horrid little 
men with long hair, who write bad poetry, call 
1 par’ful * ; I mean real strength, that is the secret. 
Here, if you like, it is treatment only that makes 
the thing possible, as you said to me once in Lon- 
don. Think of the maudlin, sugary, liow-naughty- 
we-are garden scene in Faust . That is ‘par’ful* 
and simply disgusting. In Tannhauser you have 
exactly the same situation. But Tannh a user is 
healthy, bracing, what you will, because it is 
strongly done. Nothing is shirked, which is always 
a healthy thing. If you take as your subject the 
everlasting struggle between the higher and the 
lower man, state your case. It is only when you 
cover over a point with innuendos and phrases capa- 
ble of two interpretations that the thing rots and 
breeds corruption ! ’ * 

Blanche spoke with extraordinary vehemence, 
and Percy was fairly astounded by the uniformity 
of her view. She might be right or wrong, but 
certainly she was vivid. 

Tristan , Lohengrin , and the Meistersingers fol- 
lowed during the week; and Blanche, considering 
she had only seen Wagner before on what she 
called the great comic opera stage at Covent Gar- 
den, continued to make the most surprising dis- 
coveries. About Tristan she would not speak, she 


103 


The Money Market. 

wished to see it again first; the Meistersingers she 
summed up in one phrase, “A five hours’ farce, 
and all of it funny”; Lohengrin , though much 
shorter, she thought too long. 

“There is something monotonous about it,” she 
said, “and I don’t know what it is. It is as end- 
less as the songs that the jolting of the wheels of 
trains sing. Ah, that is exactly it. It is all writ- 
ten in the same time, except one, no, two numbers.” 

Percy referred to the score; it had never struck 
him before that this was the correct reason, and 
Blanche was found to be perfectly right. 

Sybil meantime gave utterance to fresh banalites ) 
but finally struck her colours after two acts of Tris- 
tan. She confessed to Percy that she had done 
her best to like it, because he liked it so much; 
but she had a little headache, and would not come 
in to the third act. She would drive back to Fan- 
tasie when they went in again. Besides, she 
wanted to be fresh for Parsifal on Sunday. Percy 
expressed solicitude for her headache, but acqui- 
esced completely in her not going in for the rest 
of the opera. Her confession that it was too much 
for her, but that she had tried to be pleased for his 
sake, was exceedingly pleasant to him, aud he put 
her into a carriage, but did not offer, as she had 
half-expected, to come with her. On her solitary 
drive home she felt vaguely disposed to think that 
Percy was a little too much interested in Blanche’s 
opinions on Wagner; but on those occasions when 


104 The Money Market . 

she had entered some discussion of theirs she no- 
ticed that, though he replied to her readily enough, 
her contributions to the conversation had the un- 
fortunate effect of paralysing the others. Besides, 
it was impossible to hazard a contribution to the 
justification of augmented intervals when one did 
not know what an augmented interval was, and so 
for the most part she kept quiet when such subjects 
were in the air. She felt now and then a little out 
of it; but knowing, and having excellent reason to 
know, that Percy was completely in love with her, 
she agreed, sensibly enough, that his interest in 
Blanche was merely intellectual. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

Lady Otterboume's Difficulty. 

Ali, through that week Lady Otterbourne’s anxie- 
ties had gradually been getting insupportable, and 
she determined on the earliest opportunity to con- 
fide the enormity of her affairs, this time without 
reserve, to her future son-in-law. She was a woman 
of courage, and she did not as a rule flinch from a 
necessity, when she faced it as such, though she 
was often disposed to deny as long as possible that 
anything unpleasant was imperative. When a 
thing certainly had to be done, she did it, and 
wasted no idle and bitter reflection on the necessity. 
It was perfectly clear to her that this thing had to 
be done; otherwise there was no doubt that the 
house of Samuelson would, as the junior partner 
had so politely phrased it, “ adopt the usual course,” 
and the thought of “the usual course” made her 
feel cold. After they left Baireuth she could not 
be certain of seeing Percy again with sufficient pri- 
vacy; no doubt opportunities might occur, but here 
he was with them all day, and as the thing had to 
be done, it had better be done now. 

Saturday gave her the disliked and desired op- 
portunity. There was no opera that day, and, as 
the weather was very hot they had decided at lunch 

105 


106 


The Money Market . 

not to go out till tea-time, when the stress of the 
heat would have abated. After lunch th ey had all 
sat for a while on the verandah; but first Blanche 
and then Sybil had gone in, and at the end of half- 
an-hour Percy, in a state of extreme relaxation 
from heat and lunch and continued cigarettes, was 
left alone with L,ady Otterbourne, who was doing 
needlework very badly. Sybil knew that needle- 
work well ; it only appeared on occasions of anxiety, 
and it had long been to her a sort of sign that some- 
thing of extraordinary import was at hand — a kind 
of storm-cone. So when she rose and went into 
the house to write a few letters, and observed that 
her mother did not follow her, she concluded for 
certain that she had something troublesome or im- 
portant to talk over with Percy. 

L,ady Otterbourne was not easily balked or dis- 
heartened; but though in the course of her life she 
had been in some difficult places, she could not re- 
member ever having found herself in so thoroughly 
unenjoyable a situation. It was only better than 
u tlie usual course.” She had more than once 
thought of negotiating again with Percy through 
the medium of Sybil ; but she did not wish Sybil to 
know the extent of her debt, nor indeed that she 
was applying to Percy again, and she had decided 
to get through her scene with him in person. To- 
day he was in a peculiarly relaxed and foolish 
mood, the effect no doubt of this emotional week 
succeeded by an off day. As he had told Blanche, 


107 


The Money Market. 

to live on tlie extremes of your limitation entails a 
subsequent readjustment; and the readjustment was 
clearly on him. At lunch he had talked the most 
futile and extravagant nonsense, and now he was 
lying at full length in a long chair, with his whole 
mind fixed on the blowing of one smoke ring 
through another — an arduous feat, for which both 
skill and luck are necessary. 

“ It hardly matters at all,” he said after accom- 
plishing this with remarkable success, “ what one 
lays one’s hand to, provided one does it with all 
one’s might. Considered in the scale of ultimate 
good, the best and noblest thing which a man can 
do, is so infinitesimal. And the best and noblest 
thing has often a great deal of resultant evil in it. 
We are like children trying to draw a beautiful 
face. Behold, when it is done we find that we 
have made a satyr. And then we go about trying 
to persuade other children that it is beautiful, and 
for the most part we succeed. Now, there is no 
such objection to smoke rings. They are entirely 
and absolutely innocent, and of a pure and globular 
nature like microbes. And then if one blows 
smoke rings one doesn’t inhale the tobacco. Also 
one smokes quicker, which is good for the cigarette- 
makers. Finally, one always thinks that one can 
blow a better one than one has ever yet blown, 
which is a fine and stimulating reflection.” 

Percy delivered himself of these surprising futili- 
ties with great gravity and slow enunciation. He 


108 


The Money Market . 

spoke as if nothing in life was so important. Lady 
Otterbourne laughed with a little nervousness, and 
he went on : 

“To-day I have acute paralysis of the will,” he 
said. i ‘ I have a dozen letters which simply must 
be answered to-morrow. I daren’t think what will 
happen if I don’t answer them. And I shall not 
answer one of them — not because I won’t, but be- 
cause I can’t. If a coach and four was to drive 
down this verandah, do you suppose I should move 
out of its way? Not a bit of it. I might give one 
exclamation of passionate dismay, but I should not 
move. I would not move for the eight cream - 
colored horses of the Queen with their false tails.” 

This was worse and worse. Lady Otterbourne 
pricked herself violently with her needle in agita- 
tion. 

“ Oh, Percy !” she said, “ without exception you 
are the happiest person I know. You are desper- 
ately interested in many things, and, to crown all, 
you have the power of loafing, which most energetic 
people lack, and which nobody can be complete 
without. Give me the receipt for happiness.” 

“To be engaged to Sybil,” he replied promptly. 
“And to blow smoke rings.” 

“ I can’t be engaged to Sybil. Will nothing else 
do?” 

“ Yes, I suppose plenty of other things will do, 
until you are engaged to Sybil. Certainly I was 
very happy before I ever saw her. The chief of the 


109 


The Money Market. 

other things is, never to worry. Che sara sara. It 
is no use fussing and fiddling with one’s destiny.” 

“ Ah, but who shall say what is one’s destiny?” 
asked Lady Otterbourne. “ Some things seem un- 
avoidable ; but perhaps if one made sufficient effort, 
they would not be.” 

“Just now I feel inclined to say, ‘Never make 
an effort/ ” said he, “ though ‘Always make an ef- 
fort’ would be truer in most cases. What it really 
comes to is, ‘Never make an unnecessary effort.’ 
And never make an effort when a thing is done, 
never try and grab backwards ; you cannot catch 
it : and never, oh, never, indulge in regrets. They 
are useless and poisonous, and most tiring. Spend 
your strength in making the best of what remains. 
So much more always remains than what has been 
taken from us. Dear me, I am afraid I am getting 
more fatuous than ever.” 

Lady Otterbourne put down her needlework. 

“ I don’t find you fatuous,” she said. “If you 
knew it, you were speaking wonderfully to the 
point. You are saying things which have a valua- 
ble bearing for me.” 

Percy threw away the end of his cigarette, and 
sat up. The time for smoke rings, he suspected, 
was over. 

“You have something to tell me,” he said. 
“What luck! I love hearing things. It is even 
pleasanter than saying them. But first, there is 
nothing wrong with Sybil ?” 


110 


The Money Market . 

“Dear child, no,” said L,ady Otterbourne. “ But 
— but I find it difficult to tell you. I do not find 
that saying this is pleasant.” 

“ Do tell me,” said Percy. “ Take a long breath 
and tell me.” 

Lady Otterbourne took up her needlework again, 
and began to sew savagely. 

“ I am in great difficulties, Percy,” she said, “ and 
I ought to have told you long ago. I ought to have 
told you when you were so generous to me before !” 

“Oh, it’s only money!” said Percy, half with 
relief, half with disappointment in his tone. 

“Ah, there you speak with the blissful ignor- 
ance,” she said. “ If you only knew how awful 
money is to those who have not got it. To have 
plenty, you assure me, is no pleasure ; I assure you 
that not to have plenty is not pleasurable either. 
Well — when you were so generous to me I could 
not bring myself to tell you all.” 

“Why not?” asked Percy, in frank surprise. 

“ I don’t know. I couldn’t. Yet even while I 
was keeping something back, I knew I should have 
to tell you sometime.” 

“ Promise me then one thing,” said he. 

“ I will promise you anything.” 

“ Promise me that you will tell me all now. Oh, 
my dear mother, it is of no use to — to conceal 
things from one who really, as you know, finds the 
greatest pleasure in helping you, in doing anything 
to make you or Sybil happier. So tell me.” 


Ill 


The Money Market . 

“ I will tell you all,” she said. “ Some time ago 
I borrowed ^12,000 from a money-lender. The 
interest has been accumulating ever since. The 
debt is now ^15, 600 — that is to say, it was in June. 
It has been renewed again for six months — no, not 
quite six, but till the middle of October.’ * 

“At what percentage?” asked Percy. He had 
lit another cigarette and was smoking quite con- 
tentedly. 

“ Sixty per cent.” 

“ That will make it between eighteen and nine- 
teen thousand, will it not?” he asked. 

“ About that.” 

Suddenly a distressing thought struck him. The 
debt was due on the 15 th October — a month after 
the marriage. He could not help remembering 
that Lady Otterbourne had been incomprehensibly 
unwilling that they should go yachting. The 
thought was a nasty taste in the mouth. 

“Of course it shall be paid,” he said quietly, 
“ though I cannot pay it till my birthday. But 
that will be on the 15 th September. That is all 
right, then. Oh, tell me the name of the money- 
lender ; I will pay it direct, for there is no reason 
why you should be mixed up in these things.” 

“ Samuelson, of Jermyn Street,” said Lady Otter- 
bourne. 

4 4 What a greedy name ! How horrid it must 
have been for you all this time. Oh ! one more 
promise. I insist that you shall never refer directly 


112 


The Money Market . 

or indirectly to the matter again. If you don’t say 
‘ Yes' at once, I will buy the debt from the old Jew 
and sell you up myself. Quick, please, promise ! ” 

“ I promise,” said Lady Otterbourne. 

‘ ‘ On the subject of smoke rings there is much 
more to be said ; and with your leave I will say 
some of it,” continued Percy, without a pause. 
“ Supposing you blew them in a temperature very 
greatly below zero, would the damp particles of 
one’s breath turn them into ice ? If so they would 
fall on one’s nose, which would be very disconcert- 
ing. We should have to invent ring-blowers’ nose- 
protectors. How lucky I am that the tempera- 
ture is not below zero. Gracious, how hot it is ! 
It’s extraordinary the theatre does not get unbear- 
able. What shall we do this evening? We might 
drive out after tea, and those who are energetic, 
of whom I am not one, could walk back. I hate 
driving out and walking back. What do you 
say ?” 

Lady Otterbourne looked at him a moment with 
something like tears in her eyes. 

‘‘Percy,” she said, almost in a whisper. 

“ Yes,” said Percy, in extremely matter-of-fact 
tones. 

‘ ‘ Percy, may not I ? ” 

“ Certainly not,” said he, seeing that she could 
hardly speak. “You may walk or drive. That is 
all. I shall go in and ask Sybil what she wants to 
do.” 


The Money Market . 113 

And he hurried off into the house, thinking it 
better to leave her alone. 

He found Sybil writing letters, and, after arrang- 
ing with her, went to his own room. The inter- 
view with Lady Otterbourne had been harder for 
him than she knew. Why could she not have told 
him a couple of months ago about this wretched 
debt ? Though he was generosity itself about 
money matters, he did not in the least care that he 
should be paying 60 per cent, for these months to a 
horrible money-lender ! Perhaps he could arrange 
with them to pay it off in September instead of 
October. Why could she not have come to him, 
who, instead of a loan, would so willingly have 
made her a gift, and charged no interest ? Again, 
do what he would, he could not help his thoughts 
recurring to that question of their spending the 
honeymoon on the yacht. Why had she not then, 
for the second time, have told him of her diffi- 
culties ? It was impossible not to connect her 
objection to the yachting with that 15th October 
when the money became due. He hated to har- 
bour suspicions, but in a moment suspicion had shot 
itself in his mind, and in the same moment was 
converted into certainty. Again, what he coveted 
from others was, to be ' trusted by them ; and of 
whom had he a better right to expect confidence 
than of Lady Otterbourne? He felt bitter and 
angry and disappointed. 

But soon his mood changed, and the invincible 
8 


114 


The Money Market . 


kindness and gentleness of the man reasserted 
itself. He was utterly incompetent to judge, so 
he told himself, of the nature of such difficulties. 
Money had never meant anything to him ; he had 
no experience, and therefore no knowledge, of 
what the want of it meant. His bitterness and 
anger were selfish and unworthy. Regret also, as 
he had told Rady Otterbourne, was an emotion not 
to be indulged. He would make the best of what 
remained, and there always remains more than has 
been taken. Meantime tea was ready, and Sybil 
was calling him. 

But he could not guess how immense had been 
the weight which had now passed from the mind 
of Rady Otterbourne. Until she had this after- 
noon made herself secure from “the usual course” 
referred to by the urbane Mr. Samuelson, junior, 
she had not known how the uncertainties and pos- 
sible exposure of the future had oppressed her. 
She quite realized the immense service which 
Percy had done her, and in a certain way she was 
intensely grateful. But real gratitude is of the 
same fine nature as passion and love, and her 
gratitude was different in quality. She was only 
grateful as the gunner who is working his battery 
is grateful to the earthwork in which the enemies’ 
shot plunges, and to which he owes his life. She 
thought, as the gunner might think, that it would 
have been most terrible to have had no earthwork 
there, quite impossible in fact. One could never 


115 


The Money Market . 

have managed without it. But neither gunner 
nor L,ady Otterbourne regarded their saviour with 
any passionate thankfulness. For one moment, it 
is true, when Percy cut short her attempt to thank 
him, she was moved and touched, but almost 
before he had vanished into the house she had no 
thoughts but those of relief at having escaped the 
threatened danger. She realized, however, in the 
back of her mind, that it was possible that he 
might at some future occasion be her protection 
again. 

She did not attempt to make any further allusion 
on the subject to Percy, and though this was in 
accordance with his expressed wish and his real 
desire, he was surprised at it. They had a delight- 
ful drive after tea, and his future mother-in-law 
was in the best of spirits. She had scarcely known 
how heavy her load had been till it was removed. 

The next afternoon they went to the second per- 
formance of Parsifal. Percy again sat between 
Sybil and Blanche, and once more the overture 
was to both the picture of the pure man made 
perfect through suffering. The “ Stainless fool” 
shook his head to the questions of Gurnemanz ; 
pity touched him for the death of the swan he had 
killed ; the Grail was revealed to him ; and at the 
suffering of Amfortas, he clutched for a moment at 
his heart. Percy was intolerably moved, and, with 
that sudden yearning for sympathy which touches 
us all when our finest emotions are aroused, he 


116 


The Money Market . 

turned and looked at Sybil to catcli lier answering 
glance. Her head rested on her hand, her breath 
came evenly, she was fast asleep. 

He was terribly, unreasonably disappointed. To 
him his love for her had quickened and vivified all 
his artistic instincts, and they were a very real 
and integral part of him. It seemed to him for a 
moment that it was incredible that what touched 
and moved him so profoundly should have merely 
been a lullaby to her — should have done no more 
for her than a dull sermon or a heavy lunch. Yet 
there was no doubt of it, she was sleeping with lips 
a little parted, sleeping like a child. He turned 
quite cold at the dreadful thought that perhaps she 
would also snore. After a few minutes she woke, 
smiled at him, and whispered, u Isn’t it wonder- 
ful?” and instantly fell asleep again. 

For once Percy was glad when the act was over ; 
and after dinner he strolled about with Sybil, to 
whom her sleep had given an excellent appetite. 

“I thought Vandyk sang even better than be- 
fore,” she said. “Percy, it was good of you to 
bring us here.” 

Percy laughed. 

“Oh, Sybil, be honest!” he cried. “You were 
fast asleep.” 

“I closed my eyes for a few minutes,” said Sybil, 
with dignity. 

“My dear child,” said Percy, “you were asleep 
soon after Parsifal shot the swan. About the mid- 


117 


The Money Market . 

die of the love-feast you awoke, and said to me, 
‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ and fell asleep again. Don’t 
come into the next act, it will only bore you : and 
it would be dreadful if you snored.” 

Sybil was offended. 

“And I suppose it would take away your pleasure 
in the music ? ” she said. 

“Yes, it certainly would ; I could hardly attend at 
all in the last act. Come if you wish, of course, but 
I don’t see what object is served by your being bored.” 

“ Or by your attention being taken off the stage,” 
said Sybil. 

Percy saw that Sybil was angry; but he felt that 
he was in the right, and did not see his way to 
alter his mind. 

“ I did not mean to offend you, Sybil,” he said, 
“ and really I don’t see that I have been unreason- 
able. If you enjoy it, come by all means, of course. 
But why bore yourself, and sit in a hot theatre 
instead of in the fresh air? If it only sends you to 
sleep ’ ’ 

“I wasn’t asleep,” said she. 

Percy did not say any more, and they turned to 
go back. The others were still sitting outside the 
restaurant, and Sybil left Percy and sat down by 
Blanche. In a few minutes the second motif was 
sounded, and they all got up to go to the theatre. 
He saw with mixed vexation and amusement that 
Sybil said a word to her mother and went in first, 
so that she sat two paces off him. 


118 The Money Market . 

The whole incident had been infinitesimal and 
ridiculous, and he felt more inclined to laugh at 
it than to be annoyed. There were people, he 
knew, who took it as a personal insult to be told 
they had been asleep, as if it was a disgraceful 
thing, and they always denied the accusation. It 
was surely much simpler to admit it, and in this 
case he really could not understand why Sybil 
should prefer to sit through another act and make a 
martyr of herself rather than acknowledge what 
had been so extremely evident. Out of the corner 
of his eye he saw, before the theatre was darkened, 
that she was sitting bolt upright, and that her gaze 
was fixed on the curtain, which had not yet gone 
up, as if the most stirring scene was being played 
upon it. Then, as the overture began, he gave 
himself a mental shake, annoyed with himself for 
being annoyed, and for the time dismissed the sub- 
ject altogether. 

He would not have alluded to it again at all ; 
but at the end of the act, when they came out, 
Sybil approached him looking stern and judicial. 

“Did I snore during the whole of the last act?” 
she asked, with icy propriety. 

“ I did not hear you,” said Percy, gravely ; “but, 
you see, you were not sitting next me.” 

Sybil turned from him with a petulant flutter of 
ribbons and laces, and said no more. 

Lady Otterbourne had seen that something was 
wrong, and before .they went in again she spoke 


The Money Market . 119 

with great frankness and not a little hard common- 
sense to her daughter. 

‘‘What has happened?” she demanded abruptly. 

“Percy has been very rude,” she said. “He 
told me I went to sleep during the first act.” 

“ So you did,” said Lady Otterbourne ; “I woke 
you myself twice. I suppose you denied it. A 
gratuitous fib of that kind is simply pitiable. Was 
that why you gave yourself absurd airs and would 
not sit next him during the last act ? Let us have 
no more of such nonsense.” 

“It was Percy’s fault,” said Sybil, flushing an- 
grily. 

“ Fiddlestick ! Of course Percy knows you are 
quite unmusical ; but he does not yet know, and it 
had better be long before he does, that you can give 
yourself silly airs like a school-girl. Well, Sybil, 
that is my opinion ; but no doubt you will act as 
you think best.” 

Lady Otterbourne, having thus borne her testi- 
mony, left Sybil to digest her words as she best 
might. To the month they were bitter, but Sybil 
soon began to think that they were wholesome. 
Consequently when they went in for the third act 
she again sat next Percy, and, taking off her left 
glove, she slid her hand under cover of the darkness 
into his, and their reconciliation needed no words. 


CHAPTER IX. 

The Broken Cast. 

Before her engagement to Percy, Sybil Attwood 
had earned, perhaps unjustly, the character of being 
something of a flirt. But the word is an ugly one, 
and it would be more just to say that she fully 
realized that she intended to marry during the 
course of the next year or two, and that she was 
willing to give any eligible man who might present 
himself her polite and careful attention. There 
was one man in particular on whom she had be- 
stowed a great deal of polite attention, though in 
justice to her, it must be said that he had bestowed 
quite as much on her. This was a Mr. Arthur Car- 
negie, an American by birth, but in most respects an 
Englishman. He spent several months every year 
in England, though he remained an American and 
lived the greater part of his time there. He was a 
young man of about thirty, extremely tolerant, im- 
mensely wealthy, and with a large fund of indomit- 
able perseverance. In a quiet, unobtrusive manner 
he had fallen in love with Sybil, and bad not Percy 
Gerard carried all before him in his impetuous, 
rapid courtship, it seemed very likely that Sybil’s 
fate would have taken her across the Atlantic. 
There were, however, two objections to him : the 
120 


121 


The Money Market . 

first, tliat lie spent so much of his time in nis native 
country ; the second, that he was liable to allude 
without shame or warning to the origin of his for- 
tune, which was enormous. But the origin of it 
was pig, neither more nor less, and he said so. 

He was a man of few words, and he appeared to 
take his ill-success in the matter of his marriage 
with calmness. He wrote Sybil a delightful letter 
of congratulation, and told Percy, with whom he 
was slightly acquainted, that he was a lucky dog. 
What he did not envy him was his mother-in-law ; 
for that lady, he considered, had led him on in an 
unwarrantable manner, and had cast him off again 
with almost disconcerting composure. Sybil, he 
confessed to himself, he thought had led him on 
too ; but being naturally modest, he was willing to 
put this down to his own conceit. 

On the subject of Lady Otterbourne his resent- 
ment was perfectly justified. Barring the two dis- 
advantages mentioned above, she thought he would 
make an admirable husband, and up till the day 
that Percy had proposed and been accepted she had 
kept him on hand. But then he got his dismissal 
at once. Percy was distinctly the superior article, 
and Mr. Carnegie, for all she cared, might go and 
fill himself with the husks that his own pigs ate. 

It was a little annoying to Sybil to find that the 
rejected one was among the party staying at the 
Montgomerys’, with whom they spent a week after 
their return from Baireuth ; and it was even more 


122 


The Money Market . 

annoying to find that he treated her with the 
utmost indifference. He was as evenly polite as 
ever, but he showed no signs of agitation or dis- 
quiet. Percy was there as well, but the two seemed 
excellent friends ; and Sybil thought, discontent- 
edly, that there was no romance in life. 

There were only a few people in the house : 
Ernest Fellowes, Percy’s journalistic friend, was 
there ; otherwise L,ady Otterbourne, Sybil, and 
Percy completed the party. Mrs. Montgomery, it 
is true, counted for two ; but her husband, on the 
other hand, counted for none at all. He was a 
middle-aged man, with a round infantine face and 
grey whiskers, and was shyly grateful if any one 
took any notice of him, which they seldom did. 
Their home was a charming house close to Goring, 
and though partridge shooting had not then begun, 
there were quiet amusements to be had. A 
good trout-stream ran through the fields close by 
the house, and Percy, who included fly-fishing 
among the absorbing pursuits of the world, found 
plenty of entertainment. He found a fellow-enthu- 
siast in Carnegie, and the two spent some hours 
every day in matching their wits against the shin- 
ing fish. Sybil would often go with them, cherish- 
ing a sort of grudge against Percy for fishing. She 
thought in a vague fretful way that he ought some- 
how, though she could not have suggested how, to 
be devoting himself to her more completely. 

Percy would take one side of the stream, Carnegie 


123 


The Mojiey Market . 

tlie other ; and sometimes, from a sort of childish 
perversity, in the unformulated hope of recovering 
Percy from the fish, Sybil would attach herself to 
the other. In this she signally failed ; for while he 
was fishing, Percy was sublimely unconscious of 
the behaviour of anything in this world except that 
of the trout, just as when he was listening to music 
the rest of the universe was a thing of smaller 
moment than the orchestra. Carnegie also seemed 
to pay no more attention to her than he would to a 
tree, or a flower in the grass. 

On one of these days they fished the stream several 
miles higher up, where it was smaller and harder 
of access, driving out and taking lunch with them. 
Sybil again had joined their expedition, and she 
was unpacking the hamper for lunch under a tree 
some twenty yards away from the stream, as the 
two young men made a few final casts till it was 
ready. They had had but little sport in the morn- 
ing, and they were both anxious to have something 
better to show before they stopped for lunch. 

Sybil had not brought a knife, and she was get- 
ting rather impatient over the string of the hamper, 
which was in a hard knot. She had called to Percy 
once to come and help her, but he had only said : 

“Don’t bother about it. I will just fish up to 
the bend, and then I’ll do it for you.” 

In consequence she was feeling a little neglected, 
but determined to be severely magnanimous and get 
it done before he came. 


124 


The Money Market . 

There was a good pool just above where Percy 
was fishing, and in a minute or two he was up to it. 
Right in the middle a trout was feeding with the 
earnestness that the dry-fly fisher loves to see. 
Three flies, one after the other, floated down over 
him, and he snapped them all up ; and, with his 
heart in his mouth, Percy cast over him. He rose 
at the fly, but missed it altogether, and he cast 
again. This time he was fast in him ; his rod bent 
to a delicious curve under the rush of the fish, and 
his line screamed out. The gates of heaven were 
unbarring, for he was certainly a heavy fish. 

Below the pool stretched a reach of shallow water 
covered with strong sappy weeds, and it was there, 
as Percy saw, that his danger lay. Once among 
them the chances were a hundred to one in favour of 
the fish ; at all cost, then, he must be kept out of 
them. He was dashing wildly about the pool, and 
once he jumped clean out of the water. In the 
momentary glimpse which Percy caught of him, he 
put him down as not an ounce under three pounds. 
After a few minutes he began to tire, and, though 
he was perilously near the tail of the pool, Percy 
began to count him as landed. 

At that most critical of all moments, a w T ailing 
cry came from Sybil. 

u Oh, Percy, do come ! ” she cried. 

Percy turned round for one second, startled at the 
dismay in her voice ; his line slackened for a mo- 
ment, and instantly the trout was among the reeds. 


The Money Market. 125 

The heart-breaking disaster came soon, and the 
breeze dangled his flyless cast in the air. 

He swore once quietly and regretfully, and laid 
down his rod on the bank. 

“Host him? ” asked Carnegie, who had reeled in 
and was watching. 

“Yes.” 

“ Bad luck. Got in the reeds, eh ? ” 

Again Sybil called. 

“ Oh, Percy, are you coming ?” she cried. 

“ What is the matter, Sybil ? ” he asked. “ Have 
you hurt yourself? ” 

“No; but I can’t untie this string. Do come 
and help me.” 

Percy stood stock still a moment. 

“Is that all?” he asked. “You nave lost me 
the heaviest fish I have seen this year.” 

“What nonsense!” said Sybil. “How did I 
lose you your fish ? ” 

Percy made a grab after his retreating temper 
and recaptured it. 

“Never mind, dear,” he said. “You couldn’t 
know ; but you called me just at a critical moment, 
and I turned round, giving him a slack line. Didn’t 
he make for the reeds ! ” 

“He must have been badly hooked then,” said 
Sybil. “And I can’t untie this string.” 

Carnegie was some way off on his way to the 
bridge, by which he would cross in order to join 
them, and was out of earshot. 


126 


The Money Market . 

4 ( You don’t understand,” said Percy. ‘ ‘ It was no 
question of the hook. He carried off the whole fly. ” 

Sybil pushed the hamper from her ; she was in 
exactly that mood which, when it appears in small 
children, is called fractiousness. 

“ What do I care about your tiresome fish ? ” she 
cried. “ Here I’ve been half-an-liour breaking my 
nails over the thing, and then all you do is to blame 
me for losing your fish.” 

Percy looked at her in surprise. 

“What is the matter?” he asked. “ I didn’t 
blame you ; I said you couldn’t have known. Here, 
let’s have a try at that string. By Jove ! it is in a 
knot ; my knife will do it. That is the best rule : 
never untie a string if you can cut it.” 

To do Percy justice, it must be said that he be- 
haved like an angel. Once granted that a man 
thinks it worth while to fish at all, it can never be 
a trifle to him to lose a heavy fish ; and were he 
Leander himself the thought that anyone, be she 
who she may, has been the cause of it, and that on 
account of a string which would not come untied, 
must for a moment seem a bitter thing. But he 
said not a word more, cut the offending string and 
unpacked the hamper with the most cheerful alac- 
rity. Just then Carnegie came up. 

“ He looked a heavy fish,” he said. “ How did 
you manage to let him go among the reeds? I 
should have thought you would have landed him at 
once. He seemed played out.’ 


127 


The Money Market . 

Sybil interrupted indignantly. 

‘ 1 He says it was my fault, Mr. Carnegie ! ’ ’ ,slie 
cried. “As if it could be my fault, when I was 
sitting here ! I just called him, and he looked 
round and the fish was off.” 

“It was his fault then,” he said. “He should 
not have looked round or paid you the smallest 
attention just then. If Queen Victoria asked me to 
come and see her when I had a big fish on, Her 
Majesty would have to wait. ’ ’ 

Percy frowned. 

“ Oh, well, the fish is gone,” he said. “ He was 
a big one, though! Biggest I’ve seen yet, I soberly 
believe, though the fish one loses always are the 
biggest. ’ * 

Sybil was wise enough to say no more, and the 
soothing influence of food had its legitimate effect. 
She had a shallow nature, which soon got rough 
under a squall and was quickly calmed down again, 
and in a few minutes, apart from the little resent- 
ment she still felt against Percy, still believing him 
to have been completely in the wrong, she had quite 
recovered herself. 

They had found a delightful spot for their lunch, 
of the sort of which there are so many hundreds 
in England and so few anywhere else. They sat 
under a willow in a long- grassed field, at the end 
of which flowed the stream they had been fishing. 
Beyond, a long slope of meadow land, with tall 
copses planted here and there, ran down to the 


128 The Money Market . 

side of the Thames, which glimmered faintly be- 
neath the beech- woods of Cliveden opposite. Dykes 
were cut at intervals in the fields, and these were 
full of burdock and the pink spires of willow-herb. 
Tittle blue forget-me-nots crouched in the long 
grasses by the brink of the stream, each a reflection 
of the sky, and trembled on the edge of the water, 
as if longing and fearing to take the plunge. A 
lark, an invisible speck against the cloud-flecked 
luminous dome of heaven, carolled somewhere in 
the infinity above their heads, and from the road to 
Pangbourne, which lay below them, they heard the 
cheerful whistling of some boy trimming the hedges 
or driving his flock of sheep. The hundred unno- 
ticed noises which go to make up the quiet of the 
country were in their ears, and in their nostrils the 
myriad smells of green and growing things. The 
stream, which ran in a sudden elbow close to them, 
trotted bright and sparkling over its pebbly bed; 
and here and there grew clumps of the reeds 
which had been fatal to Percy, some bent double 
like a bow in the water, some standing upright and 
quivering with the suck of the current, others mak- 
ing strange twitching movements backwards or for- 
wards as if some subaqueous animal was gnawingat 
them. The sun, which for an hour or two in the 
morning had been too strong on the waters to make 
fishing easy, was now veiled with thin clouds, so 
that it hardly cast a shadow, and the tempered light 
served to bring out into a subtler harmony of tint 


129 


The Money Market . 

the gamut of greens and greys which Nature has 
mixed in such soft proportions for the summer 
colouring of the inimitable Thames. 

After lunch tobacco tasted sweeter than ever, and 
the profound animal content which is the great re- 
ward of having been out-of-doors all morning, and 
having lunched under a tree, descended on them. 
The tragedy of the lost trout had spent its bitter- 
ness, or rather it could find no fodder in Percy’s 
pleasant soul to feed itself on, and died of inanition, 
and as he helped Sybil to pack the hamper again 
with the utensils of food, he pronounced the world 
very good. The afternoon too promised to provide 
all the circumstances which lead to full creel, for 
the sun was now entirely concealed, and a light 
breeze ruffled the smoother places. 

‘ ‘ And what is to be the fate of the luncheon bas- 
ket?” asked Percy when it was ready. 

“We are to leave it at that farmhouse. They 
will call for it, ” said Sybil. 

“ And you ? ” 

“ I shall walk home,” she said, “ I shall like the 
walk, and it is only a mile or two. Will you come 
with me, Percy? ’ ’ 

Involuntarily Percy’s face fell. He was out for 
a day’s fishing. The morning had been sunny, but 
the afternoon promised perfection, and the trout 
were heavy. Carnegie who had been diligently em- 
ployed in burying the dottel of his smoked-out pipe 
in a hole in the ground and covering it with daisies 
9 


130 


The Money Market . 

planted in a life-like manner, stopped, waiting for 
his answer. Never made mistress to lier lover so 
hopelessly inopportune a request. 

But Percy hesitated only a moment. 

“Yes, of course, I will walk back with you,” he 
said, “let’s start at once, and then I can whip this 
old stream again for an hour in the evening. Come 
on, Sybil. Let me give you a hand.” 

Percy had his rod in its case in a moment, and 
he shouldered the luncheon hamper, and took it off 
to the farmhouse where it was to be called for. 
Carnegie sat quite still for several minutes after 
they had gone. 

“Well, I’ll be damned ! ” he said at length, and 
resumed his fishing thoughtfully. 

Sybil was delightful on the way home. She was 
pleased at being able to get Percy to come with her, 
and she was doubly pleased at the presence of an 
audience when she made her proposal. She was a 
born coquette, that is to say a shallow and vain girl, 
and she considered it a beau role to carry Percy 
away in this offhand manner, while another man 
who had certainly been seriously interested in her 
was looking on. Had she known it, she had ample 
cause for self-congratulation, for Carnegie wondered 
for half an hour, what it was about her that made 
a keen fly-fisher walk home with her instead of fish- 
ing, and he argued to himself that it must be some- 
thing really remarkable. He had a great respect 
for success, and certainly this unreasonable request 


151 


The Money Market . 

of liers so unquestionably obeyed, had succeeded be- 
yond the measure of what he would have thought 
possible. 

For himself he had a memorable afternoon, land- 
ing ten fish weighing nineteen pounds, yet when 
Percy enquired after his sport in the evening, he 
exhibited not the smallest shadow of jealousy, or 
regret. And Carnegie’s respect for Sybil’s achieve- 
ment grew to admiration. 

Mr. Montgomery was away from home that even- 
ing, and after the ladies had gone to bed, Percy, 
Carnegie, and Ernest Fellowes sat up talking. The 
night was cloudy and thickly overcast, and occa- 
sional glimpses of summer lightning were winked 
overhead, and reflected sombrely on the surface of 
the river. The moon had got lost somewhere be- 
hind the masses of clouds, and the light was no 
more than sufficient to show the broad outlines of 
the river and the hills beyond. To the east only 
was there a rift in the blackness ; and a couple of 
stars, looking as if they had been painted with too 
wet a brush, and run in consequence, made a dis- 
piriting glimmer. 

They sat on the edge of the lawn which sloped 
down to the water’s edge, and the noises of night 
crept about in garden-bed and shrubbery with 
padded footsteps. Three islands of lamplight were 
cast on the lawn from the open windows in the 
drawing-rooms, and soft white moths, from time to 
time, appeared suddenly on them as on a magic- 


1325 


The Money Market. 


lantern sheet, and drifted aimlessly away again into 
the surrounding blackness. There was a threaten- 
ing of thunder in the air, the remote storm was 
coming drowsily up along the river-valley, and 
Percy, who was keenly susceptible to influences of 
the weather, felt somewhat excited and restless. 

“ Why is one such a puppet in the hands of the 
clouds and the winds ?” he said. “Why, because 
the lightning smoulders in the sky, should I feel as 
if some misfortune were going to happen ? What 
a parody of a summer’s night ! It is thick with 
presentiment.” 

“It’s all stomach,” remarked Carnegie. 

“ That is no less odd,” said Percy. 

“ I don’t believe in presentiments,” said Ernest. 
“ I have had too many of them, and they are always 
wrong in about the probable proportion. For in- 
stance, I had a presentiment that nobody would buy 
The Sheltered Life .” 

“ It was a rotten little book ; about your worst,” 
said Percy. 

“ I know it was. I ought to have known that it 
would have sold for that very reason. What’s your 
presentiment now ? ’ ’ 

“ Vague misfortune. I shouldn’t mind about a 
definite presentiment. There’s going to be a storm, 
and the stream will be unfishable to-morrow morn- 
ing, and I go away in the afternoon ; those are the 
data.’ ’ 

“ You ought to have stopped on the stream to- 


The Money Market . 133 

day,” said Carnegie, “the fish were feeding all 
afternoon.” 

“ I had something better to do,” said he. 

“ What did you do ? ” asked Ernest, who had not 
heard of Percy’s earlier return. 

“I walked home with Sybil after lunch. We 
went out in the punt until tea, and explored the 
island opposite. Also a truculent keeper made 
mouths at us.” 

Carnegie stroked his moustache thoughtfully. 

“Have you ever lost your temper, Percy,” he 
asked with apparent irrelevance. 

Percy laughed. The question did not seem irrel- 
evant to him. 

“ Not with Sybil, if you mean that,” he said. “ I 
was surprised this morning, though, that I didn’t 
lose it, when she lost me that fish.” 

“ I should have,” said the other. 

“ Not if you were going to be married to her in a 
month.” 

“ You’re going to wait till after you are married,” 
said Ernest. 

“Oh, that’s just in the style of The Sheltered 
Life” said Percy. “ I should take care if I were 
you, Ernest ; that sort of thing grows on one. The 
cheapest thing on earth is that vile species of 
repartee ; and that odious and vulgar class of un- 
cultivated person which reads your books, thinks 
that it is smart, and that the upper classes talk like 
that.” 


134 Thb Money Market. 

Ernest lit another cigarette from the stump of 
the old one. 

“ Quite right,” he said. “ I am cheap. I know 
it. I found it didn’t pay to be expensive. I write 
for the great uncultivated class. In the suburbs 
they think I am a dear, delightful, naughty crea- 
ture. The suburbs are one gold-mine, and yet we 
invest in South Africans and West Australians. 
And the tools you want to work it are only cheap- 
ness.” 

li Cheap things are nasty, and they never last.” 

“Who wants to last? I have no sympathy with 
the man who aims at a million when he can never 
get there. Browning speaks, somewhere, of the 
man, who, aiming at a million, only misses a unit. 
Seven or eight hundred thousand is what most peo- 
ple who aim at a million, miss. It is a considera- 
ble deficit.” 

“I’m afraid you’ve a grovelling soul,” remarked 
Percy. 

“ I know I have. That is no discovery.” 

“ Oh, don’t grovel!” exclaimed Percy. “ It is so 
easy. Anyone can do it. Think how fortunate you 
are, for if we are to believe you, you have reasons for 
grovelling ; you are disappointed and overworked. 
So if you don’t grovel, it will be a fine thing. It is 
not always given to everybody to do a fine thing. 
It is great luck to be given opportunities.” 

Fellowes sat in silence a moment. 

“You are welcome to my opportunities,” he said. 


135 


The Money Market . 

“If I could, I would give you them all. And I 
suppose you consider yourself unfortunate, for not 
having any. You, if you like, have no excuse for 
grovelling. Out of mere curiosity, not for any en- 
mity to you, Percy, I should be glad if a quantity 
of untoward things happened to you, to give you 
an opportunity for not grovelling.” 

“Many thanks,” said he. “ Suggest some op- 
portunities.” 

“ Well, you might lose all your money to begin 
with, and then get jaundice, and have a Job-time 
of it. Oh, there are lots of things which would be 
admirable opportunities. I wonder how much it 
would take to make you knock under.” 

Again the lightning winked behind a mottled 
floor of cloud, and in the interval before the thun- 
der answered, an owl flying softly across the lawn 
hooted and vanished like a ghost. Percy laughed. 

“It thunders on the left and an owl hoots,” he 
said, “ your wish is heard. I wish I was supersti- 
tious, it would be so interesting. Well, it has 
struck twelve. I am going to bed. Good-night!” 

He went in through the drawing-room indoors, 
leaving the' other two still seated on their chairs on 
the lawn. They waited till he had vanished before 
either spoke. Then said Ernest : 

“There goes the child of fortune! He is rich, 
he is young, he is handsome, he is engaged to the 
girl he loves, he has the temper of an angel, and 
the digestion of an ostrich.’ * 


136 The Money Market . 

Carnegie paused before answering. 

u Is she very much in love with him?” he asked. 

u Sufficiently I should think.” 

“ ‘Sufficiently,’ means a great deal in this case,” 
said Carnegie. “She lost Percy a big fish to-day 
because she couldn’t untie a string, and he didn’t 
swear at her, and she walked him home after lunch 
when he wanted to go a-fishing, and he didn’t say 
one word of protest. You don’t fish, I think ; but 
I can tell you that to go for a walk on an afternoon 
God made for fishing means a good deal. Cleopatra 
wouldn’t have persuaded me to walk a yard with 
her on such an afternoon.” 

“ Cleopatra was probably cleverer than Lady 
Sybil,” said Ernest, “she would never have made 
such a request.” 

“But she wouldn’t have got it done for her. 
There’s the test, Lady Sybil did.” 

“ It looks, then, as if Lady Sybil was very stupid, 
and also very clever.” 

“That is probably the case,” said Carnegie. 
“ And that is half the secret of her charm.” 

“ I never felt the charm.” 

“ I did,” said Carnegie, with truly American can- 
dour, “and I feel it still. I was deadly in love with 
her a few months ago.” 

He paused a moment, then spoke with the frank- 
ness which he used when referring to the pig in- 
dustry in Chicago. 

“And I am still,” he said. 


CHAPTER X. 

The Eve of the Birthday. 

PKRCY had arranged to keep his birthday down at 
Abbotsworthy, and it gave a good opportunity for 
the reopening of his house. The tenants had very 
obligingly vacated a fortnight before their lease 
was up and he had instantly poured into the house 
an army of painters and carpenters to do a quantity 
of small necessary jobs. He was only meaning to 
spend a day or two there just for the celebration of 
his birthday, and he would then abandon the house 
again to painters and plumbers till his return with 
Sybil from the yachting trip at the end of October, 
when they would establish themselves there for the 
winter. The wedding had been definitely fixed for 
the twentieth of September, and he would say 
“Good-bye” to Sybil the day after his birthday, 
not to meet her again till they met at the door of 
St. Peter’s, Eaton Square. 

He had gone up from the Montgomerys’ straight 
to Eondon, where he had ail interview with the 
elder Mr. Samuelsou on the subject of Eady Otter- 
bourne’s debt. The old money-lender licked the 
dust beneath his feet, offered to make him fabulous 
loans whenever he required on infinitesimal inter- 
est, but entirely declined to shorten at all the re- 

137 


138 


The Money Market. 

newal of Lady Otterbourne’s debt. His conscience, 
he declared, would not allow him to do so, thereby 
creating a pleasing uncertainty in Percy's mind as 
to whether any two people meant the same thing 
by that much-used and abused word. Percy had not 
ready money to pay the debt at once, but he wanted 
to arrange to pay it as soon as he came of age, thus 
cutting off the last month, but Mr. Samuelson, secure 
in his rights, only regretted that his inward monitor 
would not consent to such a course. Percy, however, 
got some interesting facts about the trade, and came 
to the conclusion that the punishment of the cities of 
the plains would be a merciful fate for these sharks. 

He arrived at Abbotsworthy on the thirteenth, 
and his guests were not to come till the next day, 
for he had purposely planned this solitary evening 
in his old home. He got there just before tea-time, 
and as he sat in the library having tea Blessington 
came softly to see him, and insisted, when she 
poured out his second cup for him, on putting in 
the good- conduct three lumps of sugar. 

‘ ‘ And when do all the grand folks come ? ’ ’ she 
asked. 

“ To-morrow,” he said, “but to-night, Blessing- 
ton, we two simple folks will be alone. You shall 
come and see me after dinner and send me to bed 
at ten, and I shan’t go. Then on the nineteenth 
you shall come up to London in your best silk 
dress, and all the grand folks will ask, 4 Who is her 
Grace there? ’ Where am I to sleep to-night?” 


139 


The Money Market . 

Blessington beamed. 

u Eh, I thought you’d like your old room at the 
top of the house,” she said. “And I got it ready 
for you all myself. There’s your old cracked look- 
ing glass, which I’ve had in my cupboard ever 
since you went away, and your two china candle- 
sticks. Eh, dear me ! ” 

Percy smiled. 

“You dear old Blessington,” he said, “that is 
just what I like. And are you next door, so that if 
I’m frightened in the night, I can tap at the wall? ” 

Blessington broke out into gentle, toothless laugh- 
ter. 

“ Bless the boy,” she said, “ lie’s forgotten noth- 
ing ! And I shall bring you your cup of tea in the 
morning, Master Percy ; but if you’ve woke me up 
with any of your tappings, you shan’t have it. I 
say so, and my word is enough.” 

Percy’s guests arrived the next day, filling the 
house. Some were friends of Sybil’s known only 
slightly to him, others were school or college 
friends of his own. But the fact of all meeting for 
one particular purpose seemed to produce an amal- 
gamating tendency, and promise success to the 
party. Carnegie was there, looking as radiantly 
calm as ever ; and among others, Blanche Stoakley, 
who had come with her father. 

Eady Otterbourne had never seen Abbotsworthy 
before, and she was quite “carried away,” as she 
expressed it. She made Percy conduct her right 


140 


The Money Market . 

through the house immediately on her arrival, and 
surveyed each room with an air that seemed appro- 
priate to one who is making a bargain and wishes 
to see what the other party offers, and to an auc- 
tioneer inspecting a property. She regarded every- 
thing from its market value ; and while neither car- 
ing nor professing to care for pictures, the fact that 
a masterpiece which she did not look at was signed 
by somebody of whom she had heard, was recom- 
mendation enough ; and, to her, the authenticity of 
a picture was evidently worth more than its beauty. 
Soon, however, her air of calm inquiry gave way 
to respectful appreciation, and the magisterial atti- 
tude faded into admiration. In fact, at the end of 
the picture-gallery, she sank into a chair, and, like 
the Queen of Sheba, there was no more spirit left 
in her. 

“It is among the first houses in England,” she 
said. “I hope you will entertain royalty, Percy; 
that always gives a house a cachet. A fine house, 
good shooting and pretty women, that is what they 
enjoy.” And she added to herself : u Thank 
Heavens, Sybil is not on the eve of a marriage with 
a porkbutcher ! ” 

After dinner, Eady Otterbourne called Percy to 
her, and told him to take her to some secluded cor- 
ner. This he did. 

“ Percy,” she said, “I shall not see you again, 
after to-morrow, till we meet on the 20th. I want 
to say two words to you. I am giving over to you 


141 


The Money Market . 

what I hold dearest, and there is no one to whom I 
would more willingly entrust Sybil. There is a 
subject to which you forbade me ever to allude 
again, but I shall do so. You have shewn yourself 
splendidly generous ” 

Percy stopped his ears. 

“ For Heaven’s sake,” he said. 

“ And you have shewn yourself modest,” went on 
Lady Otterbourne, after a pause. “You love Sybil, 
for she is lovable. You will always be kind to her 
— that I know. And God bless you.” 

Lady Otterbourne looked remarkably handsome 
at that moment, and she uttered the concluding 
words as if she was conferring an order on a thor- 
oughly deserving object, one whose merits had 
fully entitled him to receive it at her hands. She 
rose, held out her hand to him, and then kissed 
him. 

“ Thank you,” said Percy, quite simply and nat- 
urally ; and together they went back out of the 
smaller drawing room, where they were sitting, to 
rejoin the others. 

In certain ways the party assembled at the 
house was a rather remarkable mixture. Lady 
Otterbourne’ s sister and her husband, Lord 
Tewkesbury, were there, the wife looking about 
Sybil’s age, and he an ill-preserved man of sixty. 
In another part of the room the present Lord Otter- 
bourne, Sybil’s half-brother, who had a face like a 
dull rabbit, was listening with ill-concealed impa- 


142 


The Money Market . 

tience to some quiet, precise remarks from Lord 
Stoakley, on the subject of guano. Mrs. Mont- 
gomery was pouring out floods of thick, unstrained 
gossip, like a river in spate, to several debilitated 
young men ; and Ernest Fellowes was deep in 
conversation with Sybil’s younger sister, Lady 
Catherine — who slept, so to speak, in the stables, 
and dreamed of dogs — on the treatment of laminitis 
in fox terriers, a subject on which he held perfectly 
unbiassed views, having never heard of the disease 
in question before. Sybil was enjoying herself 
immensely ; she loved beautiful rooms and fine 
pictures, especially when they were shortly to be 
tier’s, and she was talking ecstatically about the 
beauty of Parsifal to Carnegie, who was not quite 
sure whether Parsifal was a musical composer or a 
place in Germany. Blanche Stoakley was making 
herself fascinating to two little cousins of Percy’s, 
who had been allowed by Blessington to sit up till 
ten o’clock for a treat, and had already been treated 
as a confidante on the subject of that state-secret, 
what they were going to give their cousin for a 
birthday present. Others gathered and separated 
into desultory groups, and in the cardroom next 
door, Mr. Montgomery was already in the proud 
position of having rubiconed his opponent twice at 
picquet, which he did apologetically. 

Sybil went to her mother’s room that night to 
talk to her a little before going to bed. 

“I didn’t exaggerate, mother, did I?” she asked. 


143 


The Money Market . 

“ It is a royal place is it not? And I am going to 
be mistress of it. How well the evening went off! 
And wliat tact Percy has, hasn’t he? He even 
made Otterbourne look pleasant for a moment.” 

Her mother laughed. 

‘‘That is a distinction,” she said. “I haven’t 
spoken to him : there is no good in talking to 
irritating people. Yes, it is a splendid place. 
Took at the tapestry in this room ! And I suppose 
there are other bedrooms as good. I wonder what 
it costs to keep up. How delightful to think that it 
doesn’t matter what it costs. Sybil, my dear, you 
have a great opportunity. With this, and all that 
this implies, and with a clever popular man for 
your husband, you can make a great figure. It all 
depends on yourself. In a few years, if you take 
pains, you can treat the world as you please. You 
will be rich enough never to need to make yourself 
cheap. How much that implies ! Yes, decidedly, 
you are a fortunate girl. I see Mr. Carnegie is 
here again. Did you get Percy to ask him?” 

Sybil’s eyes danced. 

“Yes, I think he is so pleasant. And I thought 
it would be so amusing to ” 

“Well?” 

“Oh, nothing, mother. I thought it would be 
amusing to see him in Percy’s house. Did you 
notice that magnificent gold-plate on the side-board 
at dinner? It has the Hampshire arms on it, old 
Mr. Gerard bought it at the sale, Percy told me. I 


144 


The Money Market . 

want to persuade liiin to have their arms taken out, 
and his own put in. He shewed it me one day, 
and I thought it must be silver-gilt.” 

“ I see no signs of electro-plate about this house,” 
remarked Lady Otterbourne, amorously. 

“No, everything is so genuine, and so like 
Percy,” said Sybil. “He is the most genuine old 
darling I ever saw. Oh, mother, I love him !” and 
her beautiful breast heaved under the pearls which 
he had given her. 

Lady Otterbourne came and stood by Sybil and 
warmed her hands at the little cedar-wood fire 
which was glowing on the grate, for the evening 
had turned chilly. Again as once before that 
evening, she was the prey to a simple, straight- 
forward, human emotion. 

“Sybil,” she cried with sudden earnestness, “I 
should be miserable if I thought you did not. He 
is generous, he is as true as steel — always remem- 
ber that. Ah, I know. ” 

Sybil raised her eyebrows. 

“You mean about that money he gave you in 
the summer,” she said, with a slight malicious 
pleasure in dotting her mother’s i’s. “ Yes, wasn’t 
it dear of him. And the little note he wrote you 
really was the sweetest thing I ever saw. I almost 
cried when he showed it me.” 

“ May you never know what it is to want money 
like that,” said her mother. 

Sybil laughed again. 


145 


The Money Market . 

“It isn’t likely is it?” she said. “And now, 
mother, I must go to bed. How late it is ! What 
a pity it is that when one has been amused one 
always finds it later than one expects !” 

“Yes, it is unfortunate,” said Lady Otterbourne, 
“but luckily, as long as one can be amused one 
remains young. The two balance. Good-night, 
dearest child. Look your best to-morrow and 
please Percy. That will be your duty for the rest 
of your life.” 

“And his to please me,” said Sybil, kissing her 
mother. “Again the two balance. I wonder 
which of us will succeed best. Oh, I assure you I 
shall try very hard. It would be too stupid not to 
try to please him always. Good-niglit, mother.” 

Percy when he went to bed, sat long looking 
into his fire, and watching the red pictures there 
change and shift. Somehow he found that until 
this evening his future had never been wholly real 
to him. Sybil had been to him a dream, but to- 
night the dream had come suddenly true. With 
her under his own roof, with this coming into his 
inheritance, with his marriage but six days off, it 
seemed to him that he had been like some musician 
who has long heard a melody floating in the air, 
but in a moment, though it lias been for days 
familiar to him, he captures it, sets it down in 
black and white, and brings it into the domain of 
recorded art. Already the yacht which was to take 
them on their wedding trip had left Southampton, 
10 


146 


The Money Market. 


and was even now steaming up channel to London, 
where they would go on board her. 

The same moon which to-night lay floating on a 
sky covered with stars like swarming golden bees, 
would only have grown a little rounder, a little 
brighter, when she watched them on their southward 
journey. The dew that to-night glistened on her 
deck would scarcely be dry, he thought, before they 
walked that deck together. Before seven more 
suns had set the bar would have been broken be- 
tween life and life, the mystery of man and woman 
would have been solved by each, the riddle of life 
would have been answered, and the crown of hu- 
manity worn with the woman he loved would have 
been made his. Thankfulness as deep as awe was 
on his spirit, the best that life offered was to be 
given him. It seemed incredible to him that all 
his life long he had never until the last year known 
Sybil. He could not conceive how he had lived 
without her. Years had passed — each wasted, — 
but how golden a repayment was his now! Often 
and often he had looked at her face with the deter- 
mination to be coldly critical, to demand of Nature 
the dignity of sweetness, the humanness of all that 
was best in art, and as often had his critical powers 
confessed themselves baffled. Each line in her face 
was perfect to the critical view, and to the eye of a 
in an how lovable was each ! He had watched, so 
he told himself, the dawning of love in her eyes, as 
a man might watch a perfect sunrise ; he had seen, 


The Money Market . 


147 


scarcely crediting tlie beautiful boon, the wonder- 
ful surrender of all to him. There were many 
things too good to be true. Here was the best of 
all, and of all the truest ! 

He had met her first — how well he remembered 
it — at an evening party in London the February 
before, and, in a way, he had distrusted her. At 
any rate he had wished that he had been a perfect 
stranger, that she had known no more of him 
than the passer-by in the street knew of the passer- 
by. He had cursed the notoriety of his wealth, 
he had even, for a moment, thought that so 
welcoming a smile would not have been given to 
a man in rags. One day at Baireuth he had been 
unable not to tell her this, and she had half laughed 
at, half scolded him for the thought. 

“You thought that of me, Percy!” she said. 
“But I forgive you, you did not know me well, 
then. . And, indeed, I am not always nice to 
strangers. But you ” 

After that first meeting he had met her con- 
stantly and yet more constantly. At the different 
houses he went to, she had often been there, and 
at one time Carnegie, it seemed, had always been 
there. Percy thought that he must have been in 
love with her ; and the same did excellent credit 
to his good taste. 

The upper crust of coals in the fire fell in 
suddenly, giving vent to hissing little escapes of 
gas. Some of these caught fire, and sickle-shaped 


148 


The Money Market . 

flapping flames sprang up ; from some, spurts of 
bluish flame blew out, from others, not yet in 
flame, there bubbled out little crags and peaks of 
soft coal tar, which hardened quickly in the heat. 
The whole aspect of the fire was changed, and 
his thoughts changed with it, and fastened on the 
next day. 

The next day was a distinct bore, but a necessary 
one. There would be a dinner of tenantry, and he 
would have to wear a frock-coat and make a speech. 
There would be fireworks and farmers, and an 
atmosphere of buttonholes and congratulations. 
There would also be an interview with the lawyer, 
a dapper, cheerful little man, with a great appetite 
for good port, who had come down that evening. 
The will, he supposed, would be read to him, 
throughout which he would have to maintain a 
suitably decorous attitude, while all the time he 
was thinking of Sybil. He would probably have 
to sign his name a great many times, and have to 
try to understand what was meant by debenture 
stock and first mortgage bonds. After that the lit- 
tle lawyer would no doubt explain exactly what he 
inherited separately from his mother, and point out 
what came under her will. Finally, Mr. Sale 
would give him the sealed communication from his 
grandfather, and wish him joy. This business he 
had arranged should take place before dinner. In 
the morning a party of them were going into Win- 
chester, then followed the tenant’s dinner, and after 


The Moyiey Market . 149 

that a garden party. The whole day will be wasted 
in publicity ; he would hardly see Sybil at all. 

Percy sat staring at the fire till it had almost 
died out, and only a crinkled arch of hardened 
ash remained. In matters of art and intellectual 
questions he was critical and fond of analysis, 
but in questions of life and love and the great 
needs of humanity he was as simple as a child. 
He undressed quickly, and kneeling down by his 
bedside, he thanked God out of a simple and full 
heart for having given him Sybil, and for having 
ordained that they must love each other. 


CHAPTER XL 
The Birthday. 

The morning of the fifteenth was all that such a 
morning should traditionally be, bright, crisp and 
invigorating with the slightest touch of frost, 
enough to give a sparkle to the air, but not enough 
to have blackened the dahlias and scarlet salvias 
which ran in a glowing riband bed of colour down 
the path leading from the lawn to the fields by the 
river. In the morning, as had been arranged, some 
of the party went into Winchester; but Percy 
and Sybil were among those who remained, and 
after the others had started they strolled about 
the garden together. 

‘ 4 It is a bore that we have to get through this 
day,” he said. 44 For me what a programme ! A 
tenants’ dinner and some suitable remarks, then a 
garden party and some suitable remarks, then all 
the business, the reading of the will and so on. 
A series of suitable remarks in fact. However, 
the day has begun better than I expected, for I 
thought I should not get a word with you till 
evening.’ ’ 

Sybil pressed his arm. 

“And I too,” she said. “But Percy how odd 
of you ! I should love all this if I were you. I 
150 


151 


The Money Market . 

should love to see all the tenants, and think they 
were the tenants of my property. It is an entering 
in of the promised land. And I should be awfully 
excited about the will. How odd that for all these 
years you shouldn’t really have known how much 
money you had.” 

“I can’t get excited about that,” said Percy. 
“ 1 am perfectly certain there is more than I want. 
Lord Stoakley has told me so much, and he would 
not form an inadequate idea of how much I want.” 

“It is quite romantic,” said Sybil. “And are 
you not excited about the sealed letter? Sup- 
posing it is something awful ?” 

“How can it be anything awful?” said he. 
“ And indeed, Sybil, while you are with me, there 
is nothing in the world which can matter to me, 
so long as nothing makes you love me less.” 

“ I can think of nothing that could do that, 
dearest,” she said in a low voice, and in the 
liquidness of her beautiful eyes which met his so 
frankly, he seemed to see the clear depths of her 
soul. 

“Thursday — to-day is Thursday,” said Percy, 
“and Tuesday is the twentieth. Next Thursday 
where shall we be, Sybil ? The yacht will get to 
London this evening.” 

Sybil blushed faintly over her face and neck. 

“ I do not care where we shall be, Percy, ’ ’ she 
said, “ for shall we not be together? Can anything 
else matter?” 


152 


The Money Market . 

In the field below the house there had been 
erected a great tent, where the farmers were to 
dine. From the garden they could see servants 
hurrying to and fro with piles of plates and dishes, 
and already there were collecting about the walks 
little groups of tenants with their wives and red- 
faced children all ashine with soap. Percy shook 
hands with several of these, who stared in amaze- 
ment at Sybil, who seemed to them more of a vision 
than a reality. She was dressed entirely in white, 
and her glorious face looked out of its ribbons and 
laces like a flower out of a flower. She had no hat 
on, and the wind gently stirred her dark, low- 
growing hair. And when she smiled at them and 
kissed those of the children who seemed to her 
pretty and less shiny than the rest, she won the 
hearts of the fathers and mothers by that simple 
graciousness, which was so clearly no effort to her. 

As the garden got more full of these groups they 
strolled back across the lawn to the house again. 
The sunlight fell in rich and mellow abundance on 
the dull red of the old bricks, it flashed diamonds 
on the windows, and gilded the gilded vanes at the 
top of the two towers. Never had the place looked 
more magnificent, nor Sybil so worthy of being its 
chatelaine, and as she looked she felt a new pang 
of self-envy. 

“ How splendid the house looks !” she said. “Oh, 
Percy, it is no use denying it, but I love gorgeous 
and beautiful things ! I love pomp and fine rooms 


153 


The Money Market . 

and many servants, and the insouciance that wealth 
brings ! I am worldly. You must try to grow 
used to a worldly wife !” 

“There is no one whom beautiful things befit so 
well as you,” said Percy. “You are in the great 
style, as I have often told you ; you were made for 
all that. And, thank God!” he added, “we were 
made for each other ! ” 

Whether Sybil ever really loved him or not, this 
history does not pretend to determine, but it is cer- 
tain that at that moment she thought that she did. 
That probably is the deepest feeling of which a 
shallow nature is capable, and this morning when 
they walked to and fro in the sunlight in sight of 
their splendid home, at any rate, even if she de- 
ceived him, she deceived herself. She mixed him 
up in her mind with all he brought her — for that, 
at least, she had a heart-felt admiration, a passion- 
ate craving, — and when they entered the house 
again, she said to him that which seemed to him 
on her lips ever new and wonderful. 

“ Oh, I love you ! ” she whispered. 

The whole of the party in the house lunched at 
a sort of high table in the marquee while the ten- 
ants dined, and after lunch Percy spoke in answer 
to the drinking of his health which followed. Sybil 
sat next him on his right, and when he alluded to 
his approaching marriage and to her to whom, in 
the appropriate manner, “ it gives so much pleasure 
to be able to be among you to-day,” they rose and 


154 The Money Market . 

cheered to the echo. Sybil, to whom nothing was 
so pleasant as popularity, bowed and blushed 
and smiled, and made altogether a very good 
impression. In due course the garden party 
arrived, strolled about for a few hours, and behaved 
as garden parties do, and when they had gone Percy 
went to the library, where he was to meet Lord 
Stoakley and the lawyer, Mr. Sale. They were 
both there and waiting for him, and without delay 
Mr. Sale produced his grandfather’s will. 

“It is a very satisfactory statement that I shall 
have the honour to make to you, Mr. Gerard,” he 
said, “and it will not detain you long. The busi- 
ness of which your grandfather speaks is still in a 
most flourishing condition, and of late years the in- 
come which has been derived from it, which has 
all, as you will see he instructed us, been applied 
to the same, has immensely increased. Perhaps 
you would like to read the will for yourself. ’ ’ 

He passed the document, which was quite short, 
to Percy, and he ran his eyes over it. 

He read that the testator being sound in mind, 
etc., bequeathed all his property, personal and real, 
to his grandson, Percy Gerard. He held invested 
in various securities the sum of one million four 
hundred thousand pounds, which yielded an inter- 
est amounting to about sixty thousand a year. His 
houses at Abbotsworthy and in Eaton Square he 
willed should be let until his grandson attained the 
age of twenty -five years, when they were to pass 


155 


The Money Market . 

into liis hands. The remainder of his property 
consisted in certain business houses in London, of 
which he was sole proprietor. The details of these 
would be learned by his grandson when he opened 
the sealed letter which should likewise be delivered 
to him on his twenty-fifth birthday. Until then 
he was to be able to draw on his guardian and ex- 
ecutor of the will, Lord Stoakley, for an allowance 
not exceeding five thousand pounds a year. If any 
remained of this it was to be invested in trust for 
him, together with the annual income derived from 
the businesses spoken of above, and the rent of the 
two houses in Abbotsworthy and London. 

Percy looked up. 

“Apparently the income has been added to the 
capital, ever since my grandfather died,” he said. 
“ What is the total sum now invested ? ’’ 

“Nearly three millions,” said Mr. Sale, with 
visible exultation. 

Percy looked vacantly round the room. 

“Good God!” he said, and applied himself to 
the reading once more. 

At the end of the will were a few clauses relating 
to his mother’s money. She had died before old 
Mr. Gerard, and the money had been left in trust 
to Percy, with Mr. Gerard as executor. It amounted 
to thirty-three thousand pounds. 

There were one or two bequests to be paid when 
he came of age, and an annuity to Blessington of 
one hundred and fifty pounds for life. One thou- 


156 The Money Market. 

sand pounds was given to Lord Stoakley as exe- 
cutor. 

Percy folded the will up again and put it into its 
envelope. For a moment he realized the grinding 
oppression of great wealth. 

“ I understand that this is mine, absolutely,” he 
said, “mine to chuck into the sea if I wish — I beg 
your pardon,” he added hastily, “I have not yet 
thanked you, Lord Stoakley, and you, Mr. Sale, 
for your guardianship of my property. I am very 
grateful to you both.” 

He shook hands with both of them, and sat 
down again. 

“There was also a sealed letter, was there not,” 
he resumed, “which was to be given to me to-day ? 
Have you it here? ” 

Mr. Sale opened the japanned tin case which 
had held the will, and was lettered in white paint, 
“ Estate of Percy Gerard, Esq.,” and took out of it 
a large square canvas envelope directed to him in 
his grandfather’s minute handwriting, which Percy 
clearly remembered. The ink he noticed had 
turned rather faded and brown. 

“This is it,” said Mr. Sale. “ I see it is marked pri- 
vate ; if you wish to read it now, we will leave you.” 

Percy held the envelope in his hand a moment, 
as if weighing it. 

“I will take it with me, and read it before din- 
ner,” he said. “There is nothing to detain me 
now, is there?” 


157 


The Money Market . 

<( Nothing except our congratulations,” said Mr. 
Sale. “You have a princely fortune, Mr. Percy, 
and one that befits your station, and, may I add, 
yourself and your wife.’ ’ 

Ivord Stoakley and the other went out of the 
room, leaving Percy there. He looked round the 
room once or twice, then walked to the window, 
still holding the unopened letter in his hand, and 
looked out. His face was grave — almost sombre. 
This great fortune of his gave him no feeling of 
pleasure, rather, it stifled and oppressed him. Hence- 
forth he was bound in golden chains. Outside on 
the lawn, a party of those staying with him were 
sitting under the cedar on the lawn. He could 
hear the tone of their talk, the rise and fall of their 
voices, and every now and then a tinkle of laughter. 
Sitting on the grass was Sybil, with Carnegie by 
her. At sight of her his face brightened; she, at 
any rate, would hug the golden chains. He half 
tore open the envelope containing his grandfather’s 
communication to him, then suddenly he stopped, 
and running upstairs, put it down on the dressing 
table in the little room which he had occupied 
as a boy, and which, two days ago, Blessington 
had had once more got ready for him. He left 
it there, and, going out, joined his party on the 
lawn. 

They talked and laughed awhile together, but, 
before long, Sybil rose and began strolling towards 
the house. In a moment he had joined her, and 


158 


The Money Market . 

they walked up the long gravel path leading by the 
windows of the drawing-room. 

“Where have you been all this age, Percy ?” 
she asked. “ I have not seen you — for — for hours.” 

“So long as that?” he said. “And it has 
seemed long to me. I have just been reading my 
grandfather’s will, with the statement of his pro- 
perty.’’ 

Sybil stopped dead; her face was all attention. 

“ Ah ! ” she said, “ How interesting ! Tell me.” 

“ It was very short,” said Percy. “ I am heir to 
all he possessed. In my minority it has been ac- 
cumulating. In fact, Sybil, I am rich. Too rich, 
I think. I have about three millions, apart from 
the income of some business about which I do not 
yet know.” 

She still remained stock still, only her eye 
brightened, and her cheek flushed. She looked di- 
vinely, radiantly beautiful. 

“That is a great deal of money,” she said at 
length. 

“ Yes, a great deal. Oh, Sybil, I wish I had not 
a penny.” 

Sybil stared at him. 

“Why, Percy, why?” she asked. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps I hardly 
wish it. Are you glad, Sybil ? ” 

Sybil restrained a sudden impulse to clap her 
hands, to laugh, to shriek. 

“Oh, Percy, of course, I am glad!” she cried. 


159 


The Money Market . 

(< I love, as I have told you, wealth, and all wealth 
brings; pomp, luxury, power, the envy of others, 
yes, I even love that. Poor, dear Percy, you look 
as if you had only inherited a law-suit. You feel 
the responsibility. Of course there is responsibility 
attached to such an amount. Let me share it 
with you, give it me all — I will bear the responsi- 
bility.” 

They had passed out of sight of the others, and 
Percy caught her suddenly and quickly in his arms. 

“ Oh, my darling !” he cried, “what do I care 
for wealth ? I cannot help feeling that somehow 
it comes between us, that I cannot offer you myself 
alone. I wish I could do that, dearest, just for the 
pleasure of hearing you say that you take me for 
myself. Oh, I know you do. I know that. But 
I wish I was poor; it must be exquisite to be poor.” 

Sybil’s smile, and her quick trembling kiss, 
seemed to him a sufficient answer. 

u And the sealed letter,” she said, “you told me 
there was a sealed letter. What did that say ? ” 

“ I have not yet opened it,” said Percy. “ I left 
it on my bedroom table, because I saw you on the 
lawn. I will look at it when we go in to dress.” 

“What do you suppose it is about?” she asked. 
“ Can you make no guess? ” 

u I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Percy. “ Per- 
haps, I ought to have looked at it at once. But I 
don’t care. You are with me, and that is enough. 
Is it not enough ? ” 


160 


The Money Market . 

They strolled along the walk, past the riband 
bed, and stood looking out over the fields to the 
west. Below, in the last glow of the sunset the 
river lay like a string of crimson pools from the re- 
flection of the sky, a thrush in the thicket bubbled 
out a throatful of song, from the dim water-meadow 
a frog croaked. Somewhere down the lane, a lad 
walked whistling, and far away a churchbell rang 
and told the hour. The sky was cloudless and the 
lowlying meadows without a wisp of vapour. Only 
over Winchester a haze of violet coloured smoke 
hovered, and veiled the lines of red houses, and was 
pricked by the grey pinnacles and gables of the 
Cathedral. A skein of starlings flying in a V-shape 
streamed westwards until they were lost in the crim- 
son of the sunset. Below in the meadow the mar- 
quee had already been taken down and the men 
were setting up the fireworks, which were to be let 
off as soon as it was dark. Curious angular Ca- 
therine wheels were already nailed to the screen on 
which they would be burned, and a number of rings 
had been driven in to support the rocket sticks. In 
the centre was a large set-piece, looking like a 
faintly traced map, and above it the initials of Percy 
and Sybil. They were ingeniously contrived to 
move towards each other on little wheels as they 
burned, till at the end they formed a double inter- 
lacing monogram. 

The two stood by the sunken fence which sepa- 
rated the meadow from the lawn for a little while 


161 


The Money Market . 

in silence. Sybil’s face was turned to the sunset, 
which lit smouldering fire in the outlying threads 
of her black hair and flushed her face with rose- 
colour. Her mouth was a little parted as if in 
a smile, and showed the edge of her white even 
teeth, and Percy’s eyes fed on her with the hunger 
of love. He felt as if all his past life — his identity 
even — had faded from him, and that he had awoke 
to find that he was merged in the personality of 
another. Sybil met his gaze with radiant, un- 
averted look, and her smile deepened in her eyes 
and in her mouth. Percy had no words for her and 
did not seek to find them, he felt she did not de- 
sire them; never, he thought, had each so under- 
stood the other. 

The boom of the dressing gong from the house 
roused them. 

“ Come, we must go in,” said she. “ You have 
to read that letter before dinner.” 

Percy started. 

“ Ah, yes,” he said, “ I had forgotten it. I^et us 
go in.” 

11 


CHAPTER XII. 

The Opening 1 of the Letter. 

He went up to his room, parting from her at the 
top of the great staircase, on which, as the sunset 
died, the little bunches of electric lights were be- 
ginning to glow. Then he turned off the main 
passage, up a smaller flight of stairs and through a 
baize door. There were three rooms beyond, one, 
which had originally been his day-nursery and was 
now Blessington’s sitting room ; a second, her bed- 
room ; the third, his own bedroom, which he had 
occupied when a boy, and which had in former 
days been his night nursery. He well remembered 
his pride when it ceased to be called the nursery 
and became u Master Percy’s bed room.” His man 
had put out his dress clothes for dinner, and he 
dressed quickly, meaning to reserve the reading of 
the letter until he was ready. Partly a kind of vague 
desire to put off the reading of it prompted him, 
partly, in case it was long, he wished to be ready 
for dinner, and so could continue reading until the 
last moment. It lay with the envelope half torn 
open on his dressing-table, where he had left it. 
As he dressed, he noticed how his mind, full to 
overflowing with the thought of Sybil, dwelt on 
tinv and trivial things with microscopic observa- 
162 


The Money Market . 163 

tion. He smelt in his sponge the salt freshness of 
the sea ; his carbolic toothpowder had a vivid pun- 
gency about it, and reminded him of the smell in a 
London hospital which he had gone to years ago, 
in order to see a friend of his who was a medical 
student there. When he poured a little sweet ver- 
bena into his bath, there rose before him, unbidden 
and extraordinarily clear, the garden walk at Mr. 
Montgomery’s house by the Thames, over which 
grew that delectable plant, the leaves of which, as 
they strolled up and down, he and Sybil used to 
pluck and rub in their hands. On his mantlepiece 
stood a small photograph of Titian’s “Moses in the 
Bullrushes” in a brass frame. Blessington bad 
given it him when he was five, and he remembered 
with the most minute distinctness how he had taken 
it out of the tinsel paper in which she had wrapped it, 
and thought it the most beautiful thing he had ever 
seen. On his dressing-table stood the cracked look- 
ing-glass which his nurse had kept in her cupboard 
during all the years he had not been at Abbotswor- 
thy, and which he had broken himself with a cricket 
ball with which he and a boy friend were playing on 
a wet afternoon in this same little bed-room. His 
diary seemed to be written on the walls of his room. 

His bath was refreshing after the long and tiring 
day, and it was a relief to get into fresh and clean 
clothes. He dressed himself as far as coat and waist- 
coat, and then sat down in a chair in his shirt 
sleeves and took up the half-opened envelope. 


164 


The Money Market . 


Inside were two sheets covered with the exquisite 
minute handwriting of his grandfather, a hand 
more like a woman’s than a man’s, and he unfolded 
them. The paper smelled faintly of the camphor 
which Mr. Sale no doubt had put among the papers, 
and the ink, as on the envelope, was turned brown. 
He read thus : 

“ My dearest Grandson, — This letter I write to you to 
wish you every good thing on this your twenty fifth birth- 
day. To-day you will have had read to you, or you will read, 
my will, in the presence, no doubt, of Mr. Sale, my lawyer, 
and Lord Stoakley. Perhaps they will not be alive, and 
other executors will have been appointed, but in any case I 
am sure that all will have been done in order, and that now 
you will find yourself a very rich man. I, of course, will 
have been dead for some years, for the doctors have told me 
to day I cannot live many weeks, and as I write this I 
wonder with intense curiosity whether I shall be conscious 
of what you are, at the moment, doing, and whether I shall 
be perhaps by your side, looking over 3-our shoulder and 
watching you while you read. I have never much troubled 
myself about what will happen after I am dead, for the 
simple reason that I have no means whatever of telling, 
and it is quite idle to guess at and invent answers for a 
riddle, when there is no one to assure one if one has 
guessed right or not. 

“ Well, my dear grandson, here are many happy returns 
of your birthday to you, and health and happiness to 
enable you to enjoy the wealth yon have inherited. By 
the time you read this letter it ought to have become very 
considerable, quite enough, in fact, to enable you and your 
wife and children (if you are thinking of marrying) to pass 
through this life without being obliged to deny yourselves 
anything in reason that is purchaseable. The money is 


165 


The Money Market . 

yours absolutely, and you can build a college with it, or 
send out missionaries to non-existent islands, or lose it on 
the Stock Exchange or double it again, without causing 
me either pleasure or regret. For of one thing I feel cer- 
tain, that as soon as we have ceased to do with this world, 
we have ceased to do with money, and therefore the dispo- 
sition of my money after it is in your hands does not give 
me a moment’s thought. 

“ Years before you open this letter, my dear Percy, you 
will quite certainly have been told two things which con- 
tradict one another ; the first that money is a curse, the 
second that it is the only thing that matters. Neither are 
true, though both have some shadow of truth. In the 
hands of a fool, money is a curse ; but then anything is a 
curse in the hands of a fool. In fact, that is not a bad 
definition of a fool — a man who misuses all that is given 
him. Again, though not the greatest blessing, money is a 
very considerable one, and it will buy you everything, 
except those few things that are really worth having, and 
of these it will buy you a sort of counterfeit, which you 
may easily mistake for the real thing. For instance, though 
it will not bring you health, it will buy you surgical and 
medical aid and alleviation, and though it will not buy 
you a loving wife it will buy you a beautiful one. Take 
this money then for what it is worth ; do not depreciate it, 
but do not exaggerate its importance. You early showed a 
real taste for artistic matters, and in this, though it will not 
buy you skill, it will enable you to receive lessons from any- 
one you please ; and if you have decided not to paint your- 
self, it will enable you to surround yourself with beautiful 
pictures and lovely things. La consolation des arts : there 
is a great deal of truth in that exquisite phrase of Flaubert’s ! 

“ It is exceedingly pleasant to me to look forward like 
this, and be able to talk to you once more, and at the risk 
of seeming tedious, I shall continue to chat to you a little. 
How have you grown up, Percy ? You promised to be tall 


166 


Thb Money Market. 

and handsome, and you were always sweet-tempered. These 
gifts are worth more than all my money, but money is by 
no means a bad frame for them. It will be in your power, I 
fancy, to make a great name, and here again money will be 
an immense advantage to you. If you go in for an artistic 
career of any sort, you will never have to work against time, 
or turn out anything which seems to you unworthy of your 
best. People often say that to be poor, to have to work for 
one’s bread, is a great incentive. Possibly it is to all but 
absolutely first-rate men ; but the best work, I think, is 
always turned out by men who do not have to do that. I 
dare say you could quote instances to the contrary, but you 
can always get an instance of everything. Again, if you go 
in for politics, it is no bad thing to have a good deal of money 
to back you. Electors feel that a wealthy man who takes the 
trouble to bawl on hustings must be in earnest, when, if he 
chose, he might be drinking and sleeping (the paradise of the 
proletariat). Again, I don’t know what the current price of 
peerages will be in England when you are twenty five, but 
of course anything of that kind, if you wish for it, will be 
well within your means. You ought to have about three 
million pounds, under the excellent management of Mr. 
Sale and Eord Stoakley, by the time you come of age, as well 
as a very handsome income, which, if I know anything of 
the world, is not likely to decrease as the years go on.” 

Percy liad drawn liis chair close up to the win- 
dow, but he was obliged to stop a moment to light 
a candle. Just as he lit it, the dinner- gong sounded 
from below, and he glanced to see how much was 
left of this communication still unread. It would 
not take him more than a minute or two to finish 
it, and he sat down again, wishing, in some unde- 
fined, nervous way, to get it over, glad to see there 
was so little more. He turned the page. 


167 


The Money Market . 

“And now, dear Percy, before I stop, it will be only right 
to tell you how I made my fortune. I began in a small 
way , but all I could save I put into a money-lending busi- 
ness — Samuelson, of Jermyn Street. On the death of the 
old Mr. Samuelson, I bought the concern right out, retain- 
ing his son as business manager. He now also has a son, 
about the same age, I think, as yourself. I realised, as you 
can well believe, now that you know the folly of the world, 
enormous profits, and I bought two other businesses of the 
same nature — Appleton’s and Gore’s, both of St. James’s 
Street. With my growing available funds, I speculated 
enormously, and I had, as I suppose everyone has, ups and 
downs. But I amassed the fortune which you now inherit, 
and from these three money-lending agencies you are draw- 
ing, as well as the bulk of the capital I leave you, a very 
handsome income. That is the history of your fortune. 

“ But one more word. It is possible when you read this 
that you will have a sudden pang of disgust and loathing 
for your wealth. Such a feeling will be natural, even cred- 
itable to you, but it should only be momentary. You are, 
I imagine, a young man of artistic tastes and considerable 
fastidiousness. All I say is, think it over, and remember 
that every penny that anyone gains (unless one owns a 
mine) is made at the expense of somebody else. 

“ I am, my dear Percy, 

“ Your affectionate grandfather, 

“Henry James Gerard.” 

Percy replaced the paper neatly back in its en- 
velope, put on his coat and waistcoat and went 
quickly downstairs. The others had all assembled 
and were waiting for him. He apologised for being 
so late, and giving his arm to Tady Otterbourne, 
led the way into dinner. 


CHAPTER XIIL 

The Evening; of the Birthday* 

PERCY took his seat at the table with a heightened 
colour and a flashing eye. For the time a sort of 
wild irresponsibility was over him. He knew the 
worst, and the worst was as bad as it could be. But 
at present he hardly felt it, it was like a blow de- 
livered under water, not painful at once. He would 
have to think wdiat should be done, though as to 
that he felt no doubt what conclusions he would 
come to, and tell Sybil of it. But just now he had 
a party with him who would go to-morrow, Sybil 
and Lady Otterbourne he must persuade to stay till 
the afternoon, and when the others were gone he 
would tell them. Let him meet the thing at any 
rate, if not with courage, with the show of cour- 
age ; and for the sake of good manners, banish from 
his mind, while it was his duty to entertain his 
guests, the horror that lay in those sheets which he 
had folded up and put away in their envelope. 
Suddenly he remembered that he had left the en- 
velope lying on his table, and he had a spasm of 
fear that some housemaid tidying his room might 
read it. He beckoned to one of the footmen and 
told him to get it and bring it to him. With it in 
his pocket, he felt that for the present his secret 

m 


169 


The Money Market. 

was secure, shared by none but Mr. Sale and Lord 
Stoakley, and that he could more easily put the 
thought away from him. But all the time his 
spirit cowered and shook inwardly. For one mo- 
ment as he came downstairs to dinner a sudden 
doubt had come into his mind as to what Sybil 
would do when she heard his decision, but he had 
instantly cast it from him. But for that moment the 
doubt had been there, an exquisite torture, and he 
still shrank from fear of the involuntary repetition 
of that horrible pain, just as a patient will wince, 
after some surgical incision, for dread of the knife 
again. From the other side of the table he saw 
Mr. Sale looking at him, and he felt ashamed of 
meeting his eye, for he probably knew the secret. 

He turned to Lady Otterbourne. 

“ I particularly want you and Sybil to stay till 
to-morrow afternoon,” he said. “I have an affair 
of some importance to talk to you about. It is 
really important.’' 

Lady Otterbourne looked doubtful. 

“ We have a lot to do in London to-morrow,” she 
said. “ Dressmakers also are affairs of some im- 
portance, or so Sybil and I think. Are you sure 
your affair is as great as that? ” 

“Yes, lam sure it is,” said Percy, “ I beg you 
to stop. ’ ’ 

“ Well, I daresay we could. There will be tele- 
grams to send. By-tlie-way, Percy, I must con- 
gratulate you on the upshot of the will. Sybil is a 


170 


The Money Market . 

very fortunate girl. I have never seen her so ani- 
mated or excited.’ * 

She turned and looked at him, and noticed his 
raised colour and flushed face. 

“ You too look excited,” she said briefly. 

Percy drank off a glass of champagne. 

“ Yes, I too am excited,” he said. “What fun 
it is coming of age, and what a pity one cannot do 
it oftener. And there will be fireworks after ; I love 
fireworks ; I always feel a sort of affinity to them.” 

“ But not to the fizzling out, I hope,” said Lady 
Otterbourne, “and the descent of the rocket- 
stick?” 

“O, who knows?” he said. “Who will assure 
anyone that he won’t fizzle out. After all so many 
people do nothing but fizzle out from the first. 
They, like Charles II., are merely a long time in 
dying, for all their life is a sort of dying. What 
if I should lose all my money ? There would be 
precious little left of me.” 

“O, three millions is too large a thing to loose,” 
said Lady Otterbourne. “ Besides, you are not the 
kind of man to whom a fortune is merely a sort of 
label to prevent his getting lost in this big world. 
Without it you would still have an existence, 
whereas most of us wouldn’t.” 

Percy turned eagerly to her. The doubt again 
threatened him. 

“Do you think that?” he said. u Are you sure 
you think that ? ’ ’ 


171 


The Money Market . 

Lady Otterbourne laughed. 

“ Sure? Of course I am sure. What is the mat- 
ter with you ? ” 

“Nothing in the world,” he said. “I am ex- 
cited, I know. I have been excited ever since I 
knew Sybil. What an immense benefit she has 
conferred on me in that alone. Supposing she was 
to jilt me to-morrow, how immensely I should still 
be in her debt. Oh, I don’t mean that, of course.” 

Once more, as he spoke, the horrible doubt as- 
sailed him, and a sudden contraction of pain crossed 
his face, but it passed in a moment. 

Lady Otterbourne, with all her shallow folly, had 
a certain amount of shrewdness, and she did not 
wholly trust her conclusions that the discovery that 
he had three million pounds to his credit would 
excite Percy like that. It is true that it would 
have excited her ; but Percy had always lived in 
the expectation of something of the kind : at any 
rate, he was used to being rich. 

Lady Tewkesbury was sitting on the other side 
of Percy, and she cut in in the pause that followed, 
and Lady Otterbourne transferred herself to her 
other neighbour. 

u Do you consider congratulations vulgar?” de- 
manded Lady Tewkesbury of her host. 

“Congratulations have entirely the character of 
the spirit in which they are offered,” said Percy. 

“Am I to conclude, then, that mine are vulgar?” 

“ That is not what I meant you to conclude.” 


172 


The Money Market . 


Lady Tewkesbury leant forward. 

“ Tell me wliat you meant me to conclude,” she 
said. “ I am not stupid, and I will try to under- 
stand. But I rather think you are hard to under- 
stand. I always feel that you may have a surprise 
in your pocket for us all.” 

Percy thought of the letter in his pocket which 
had been such a surprise to himself and laughed. 

“I am delighted if you really think so,” he said ; 
“but I cannot conceive it to be true. For indeed 
I am very straightforward and obvious.” 

“ I notice that people always refer to the things 
which I have not perceived as obvious,” remarked 
Lady Tewkesbury with some asperity. 

“ Perhaps you are so fond of peeping round cor- 
ners that you don’t see what is straight in front of 
you.” 

Lady Tewkesbury shrugged her very white 
shoulders. 

“ I acknowledge that I prefer to look about for 
queer little traits in people, than to only observe 
what is patent to everybody. And, no doubt, from 
not caring to observe that, I often fail to.” 

“Ah; but who can tell what is patent and what 
is not?” said Percy. “To a certain extent we all 
wear masks, and the most cunning people of all are 
those who wear a mask which is exactly like their 
own face. They would deceive the very elect.” 

“ Whom do you mean by the very elect?” 

“I mean you, Lady Tewkesbury.” 


173 


The Money Market . 

I understand you less and less,” said she. “ But 
I promise myself that you will surprise me before I 
have known you a month longer.” 

Percy’s face suddenly changed : for a moment he 
looked hunted and frightened. But he recovered 
himself. 

“ A month is a very short time,” he said. “ But 
if you are not to be disappointed, I must think and 
try to find out something surprising to do. People 
are so often surprised, yet it is so hard to think of 
anything new by which to surprise them. Do help 
me ! Would you be surprised if I went and stood 
on my head in the corner ?” 

“ O, dear no ; I should only think that you were 
studying an artistic effect. Everyone tells me you 
are so artistic ; and, of course, anything that artists 
do never surprise one.” 

“ Then how is it that you promise yourself that I 
shall surprise you before a month is up?” asked 
Percy. 

“ Did I say that ? Yes ; I believe I did,” she re- 
plied. “The only explanation is that you will do 
something very obvious and expected, which, as an 
artist we should not have expected you to do.” 

Percy laughed. 

“ You got out of it fairly well,” he said; “but 
you had to have recourse to subtleties. For I as- 
sure you that I am entirely and completely obvious.” 

“ Then Sybil is an even luckier girl than I had 
imagined,” said she. “ But I don’t believe it.” 


174 


The Money Market . 

“ You don’t believe what ? That Sybil is luckier 
than you supposed. That is ambiguous” 

u You are incorrigible. No, that you are com- 
pletely obvious.” 

“But why if that is so, should Sybil be luckier 
than you thought,” he asked. 

“ Because she could always count on you.” 

“ And you, not believing that, do not believe that 
I am always to be counted on. There is another 
opportunity for a subtlety, if you are to get prettily 
out of it.” 

“ I could if I wanted,” said she. “ And I won’t try.” 

“ A Parthian retreat,” said Percy. 

“ No, I have no arrows to shoot at you as I run. 
But tell me one thing. You said that compliments 
took their colour from the spirit in which they were 
made. Give my compliments their quality ! ” 

Percy replied without hesitation. 

“ Sincerity,” he said. 

L,ady Otterbourne caught the last word. 

“ Sincerity is one of the seven deadly virtues,” 
she said, with a certain dignity. 

u And insincerity one of the seven living vices? ” 
suggested Percy turning to her. 

“ One of the seven essential vices,” she corrected 
him. 

“ And the other six ? ” he asked. 

“ Really, Percy, it is not polite of you to ask me 
for a list of the vices,” she said. “ Ask my sister ; 
she knows more than I.” 


The Money Market . 175 

“ I want the other six essential vices, ” he said 
turning to her. 

“ There are more than six,” said Lady Tewkes- 
bury. 

u Six will do. One ought to be able to get on 
with six.” 

“It is easy to give you six: wanting what you 
have not got ; not valuing what you have; speaking 
well of your enemies before their faces ; speaking 
evil of your friends behind their backs ; reading the 
papers; going to the Royal Academy.’ * 

Percy laughed. 

“That is sufficient,” he said, “to last a whole 
season. They might even last two, with a little 
care. Will those do?” and he turned to Lady 
Otterbourne. 

“Yes, very well. But they are the vices of 
women.” 

* Tell me the vices of men.” 

“Ask Sybil a month from now,” said Lady Otter- 
bourne, laughing. “Am I to show the way ? I see 
every one has finished.” 

The men soon came out, and a few minutes after- 
wards the first rocket went up. Percy was desirous 
of two things only, to talk to Sybil and to let the 
hours pass. More than once during dinner had the 
great doubt came upon him, and he felt exhausted 
with the effort of repelling it. Sybil alone could 
do that effectually, and it was impossible to see 
Sybil this evening to tell her all that that horrible 


176 The Money Market . 

letter contained. Besides, though he was sure in 
his own mind that he knew what he would do, he 
had not definitely stated it yet even to himself. He 
would have to read the letter through again, he 
would have to din the utmost truth of it into his 
mind. 

The fireworks lasted about an hour, and w T ere 
received with immense enthusiasm by the tenants, 
especially the last, where Sybil’s initials and his 
own were brought together to form a monogram. 
At the sight of that once again Percy’s doubt rose 
and clutched at his throat, and once again he 
thrust it away. 

It was not long afterwards that the ladies went 
upstairs, and Percy, pleading fatigue, left the men 
in the billiard room and went upstairs also. Lord 
Stoakley was standing in the hall by the tray of 
whisky-and-soda, and as Percy passed through and 
said, “Good night,” he stopped for a moment. 

“Do you know what was in the sealed envel- 
ope ? ” he asked. 

Lord Stoakley nodded. 

“Yes, my dear Percy. There was a paper left 
for the executors alone, to enable them to carry on 
the business. We were strictly forbidden to men- 
tion the matter to you until to-day. Are you very 
much upset about it ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Percy, blankly. 

* ‘ Come and talk to Mr. Sale and me before we go 
to-morrow morning,” said the other. “We thought 


177 


The Money Market . 

probably that you would want to part the connec- 
tion ; though the fact that it has been carried on so 
long without any one knowing to whom it belonged, 
is a factor on the other side. Still you will pro- 
bably desire to stop it.” 

Percy suddenly threw back his head and laughed 
loudly and unnaturally. 

“ Yes, that is probable,” he said. “If only that 
were all. Is it possible that you do not see the 
hideousness of the thing ? ” 

L,ord Stoakley looked at him gravely for a mo- 
ment. 

“ Percy, promise me you will do nothing in a 
hurry,” he said with anxiety in his voice. “ Now, 
perhaps, you take an exaggerated view of it all. 
That is of course natural ; but cease to be exag- 
gerated before you act.” 

“ I will promise you that,” said Percy. “Indeed, 
I do not see in what direction it is possible to exag- 
gerate the truth of this.” 

He went up to his room at the top of the house, 
lit several candles, and sat down in the chair where 
he had read the letter. He drew it out of his 
pocket and read it again ; then he poked the fire, 
and, as on the night before, he sat down and stared 
at the burning coals and communed with them. 

“ Samuelson, of Jermyn Street ! That was what 
he was — a money-lender! That and Appleton’s 
and Gore’s — how exquisitely ironical was Fate ! 
To think that in August last he had promised to 
12 


178 


The Money Market . 

pay a debt of Lady Otterbourne’s with crushing 
interest, and that he would pay it on October the 
fifteenth to himself! To think that when he ap- 
proached them on the subject of cutting short the 
renewal, he had only approached himself. After 
his interview with the elder Mr. Samuelson he had 
felt unclean ; to have dealings with that sort of 
man left a stain on one. That sort of man was 
what he was himself ! To think that all his wealth, 
all that the world envied him for, was derived from 
similar transactions ! In what disgust and heart- 
felt loathing he had held those vampires and blood- 
suckers of improvident people ! Who was the chief 
of them? Again himself! The house he enter- 
tained his friends in, the wine they drank, the food 
they ate, the millions that bought all these things, 
where did they come from ? From Samuelson, of 
Jermyn Street! Here was he, young, ardent, fas- 
tidious, nurtured in luxury, with power to buy all 
he envied in the way of beautiful things ! From 
where did that power come? To whom did he 
owe his education, his boots, his hat? To Samuel- 
son, of Jermyn Street !” 

For a moment his old habit of standing aloof 
from himself, of becoming his own spectator, reas- 
serted itself. How completely dramatic was the 
climax, as far as it had hitherto developed. It was 
a Sophoclean tragedy without even the ambiguous 
warning of the oracle. Till this evening he had 
been utterly ignorant and innocent of the source of 


179 


The Money Market . 

this gathered gold. No honest and struggling man 
enveloped in his toils could have reproached him, 
no one could have besought his mercy, for none, 
not even himself, knew what he had been doing. 
So far, the climax was totally unexpected, as sud- 
den as lightning, and admirably set. He was over- 
taken on his birthday night and on the eve of his 
marriage by this horrible discovery. The scene 
had closed on it, and he was alone again. The 
next scene would open in twelve hours. He was 
very anxious to know what the great Drama of life 
had in store for him. The main features of his own 
part, in so far as they depended on himself, he knew 
pretty well. 

He had come away from his guests in order to 
think over the great step which he was determined 
to take to-morrow, and the consequences of that 
step. In a word, he was going to give up every 
penny of his grandfather’s money which had been 
acquired in this horrible way. If it was possible, 
he would find out what was his grandfather’s for- 
tune before he took to money-lending ; he would 
add to that his mother’s fortune, and that he would 
keep. Samuelson’s, Appleton’s, and Gore’s should 
cease to be. If necessary he would pension off the 
business managers, he would get places for the 
clerks, he would close the offices, thereby forfeiting 
his income, he would realize all the investments, 
worth, Mr. Sale had told him, about three million 
pounds, give the money either en bloc to found 


180 


The Money Market . 

some college or charitable institution, or divide it 
up between a dozen such, thus washing himself 
clean of these atrocious trades. Abbotsworthy, a 
fruit of his money-lending, should be sold, every- 
thing should be sold except his own personal pos- 
sessions, which he did not feel called upon to part 
with, since he had bought them out of money 
which yielded an income below that which his 
mother’s fortune and the original possessions of 
his grandfather would equal. He would make a 
clean sweep of all this iniquitous compilation of 
wealth. It hardly needed a determination to arrive 
at this ; the idea was a necessity. The money was 
filthy, he would wash his hands of it. 

There would certainly be an enormous amount 
of business to be done. What line he would take 
with those unfortunates who were still owing large 
sums to one of the three money-lending houses, he 
felt it difficult to determine. For himself he had 
no kind of interest in what became of the money, 
but the debts were debts, and he saw no reason why 
they should not be paid. In a curious, half-senti- 
mental manner also, he considered that he ow r ed it 
to his grandfather to wind the thing up properly. 
In spite of the shrinking, invincible disgust he had 
to concerning himself at all in such affairs, he saw 
that, till to-day, the money had not been his, though 
left in trust for him. He passed, on his twenty-fifth 
birthday, but not before, into possession of what 
these money-lending businesses had produced. Cer- 


181 


The Money Market . 

tainly, no one, seeing to what use he put the money 
recovered, could accuse him of the spirit of Shy- 
lock. About that, however, he determined to con- 
sult Mr. Sale, who, so Percy reflected, grimly, had 
a heavy month’s work before him. 

His grandfather. . . . The thought of him gave 
Percy a cruel wrench. His remembrance of him 
was only childish, but the tall, grey-headed old 
man, with his fairy stories and his endless interest 
in Percy’s childish joys and troubles, was still vivid 
to him. How was it possible to reconcile the image 
of that kind, gentle old man with the proprietor of 
Samuelson’s business? Which image must give 
way to the other? Yet neither could give way. 
They were both real. Had it been kind or brutal 
of him to delay this discovery so long, or was it 
neither kind nor brutal, but wise only, so that the 
moment Percy knew of it he might be able to act, 
to break up his wealth if he chose, or if he chose, 
to go on doubling and redoubling it ? He inclined 
to this view. 

In any case, he would have to tell the whole to 
Sybil next day — to her and L,ady Otterbourne. 
Then, washed of his involuntary vileness, he would 
give her himself. The contemplation of that 
moment, in a way, excited him strangely, and filled 
him with a sort of tremulous exultation. How 
often before now he had cursed his wealth, when 
she was with him ! How often for the comfort of 
himself, would he have liked to tell her that he had 


182 


The Money Market . 

lost it all, just for the joy of seeing her face radiant, 
indifferent to anything but him. That she loved 
wealth he knew ; but that, weighed against the 
love they bore each other — how it would kick the 
beam! Even that very evening, as they watched 
the sunset, he had said to her that he wished he 
was poor, to be able thus to receive the outward 
and visible sign of what, in his heart of hearts, he 
assured himself he knew so well : that, if he had 
been a beggar, she would have come to him with 
the same self-surrender. He loathed himself for 
ever having let the hideous doubt come into his 
mind ; yet, to do him justice, it had come unbidden, 
and he had not suffered it to tarry there. He scorned 
himself for ever having to assure himself how well 
he knew her love for him, how utterly he trusted 
her. But the very next moment he leaned back 
in his chair, torn and beaten by the self-same invol- 
untary question. Again he wrestled with it. 

This time it came more insidiously in the form 
of reasoned logic. Had he been poor, would he 
have even dared to ask Sybil to share his life ; 
and, even if she had consented, would not he have 
absolutely forbidden her to do it? Would it not 
have been the most contemptible selfishness on his 
part to let her sacrifice her life like that? She 
was born — so he had often told her — to all the 
splendour and beauty that wealth can give, lier’s 
by birthright. It was right that miners should 
work, sweating in the earth, to give her a moment’s 


183 


The Money Market . 

amusement. He abhorred the doctrine of equality, 
a doctrine contradicted every moment of life, by 
every creature that breathed. Each separate gift 
with which man was endowed by heredity or en- 
vironment, had its money value. A man who was 
clever and industrious necessarily became rich, at 
the expense, may be, of the stupid and idle. Clearly 
then, on the question of merit, equality was impossi- 
ble. To others — and Sybil was one of these — wealth 
or the atmosphere of it, a perfectly defined and 
comprehensible thing, was as necessary for life as is 
oxygen for the lungs. For her to live otherwise, 
was for her a stunting of her nature ; as bad as if 
she was kept on insufficient food. Do what he 
would, he could not picture her a poor man’s wife ; 
her destiny, as any one could see, had ordained 
otherwise. 

Again, would she consent to it ? Herein lay the 
sting of the doubt. Did she love him enough to 
make a marriage which should have no brilliance, 
which relegated her in the eyes of her world, to a 
pitiable obscurity. Would Eady Otterbourne let 
her do it, and if her mother dissuaded her, would 
Sybil have the courage which should insist on 
going her own way? Would she try to alter his 
own decision with regard to the disposition of his 
fortune? It was this as much as anything that 
Percy dreaded, for if she did this by a word, by an un- 
expressed regret even, he would know what leagues 
they were apart, To give up instantly a fortune 


184 The Money Market . 

thus acquired was as necessary to him as breathing. 
Simply he could not possibly act otherwise. He 
could not even argue the question with her, and, 
indeed, on such a matter he had no arguments. 
With him it w 7 as a question of instinct, and irre- 
sistible. On the other hand, he could conceive a 
thousand admirable reasons for not giving up a 
penny of his fortune. In the first place the manner 
in which it had been acquired was altogether an 
agency outside him. He had not till to-day known 
it, and if he had known it he would have been 
powerless to stop it. Again, what money except 
money earned by the mere toil of the hands in use- 
ful and necessary trades, was altogether clean ? All 
acquisition of property was immoral from this point 
of view, the stronger worsted the weaker, the clever 
the more stupid. Unless, as his grandfather said, 
you discovered a gold mine, and that, too, on your 
own property or on no one’s property, every penny 
you made was made at the expense of others. All 
this he allowed, but it was absolutely powerless to 
alter his decision, or make it possible for him to 
contemplate its validity. Again, was he in no way 
to regard Sybil’s desire? If she pleaded with him, 
how could he resist it ? If she used cool and rea- 
sonable arguments how could he answer ? He did 
not know ; all he knew was that he could not do 
otherwise than he had determined. 

Once again, as only twenty-four hours ago, the 
core of burning coal faded and ceased to glow. 


185 


The Money Market . 

Once again, the half burned cinders clinked in the 
grate as the arch of half-consumed slag fell in, and 
Percy got up from his chair, and threw the window 
wide. It was a glorious night, the September moon 
shed a flood of ivory-coloured light over the gar- 
dens and fields. It was swung high in the sky and 
a little behind the house, so that a great square of 
shadow was cast by the huge building over the 
nearer lawns. The Triton fountain tinkled in the 
stillness, and the wind was hushed. The utter 
want of sympathy between man and Nature never 
struck him more forcibly. Because his world was 
ready to fall about his ears, not a whit of the love- 
liness of night, with the trees sleeping in the moon- 
light and the noise of falling water from the dark- 
ness, was abated. The great serene Mother had no 
time or inclination to listen to his puny question- 
ings. 

Then, with a sudden great wave of shame, he 
definitely cast his doubt aside. He had been doubt- 
ing Sybil, no less — he had been committing treason 
to her. She had promised herself to him. Was 
not that enough? And his loyalty and his love to 
her shouted the affirmative. 

He had a moment before thought that Nature 
was cold and unsympathetic. Indeed, she was far 
otherwise. She sympathized not at all, it is true, 
with his weak, timorous doubtings, but where could 
he have found a more perfect symbol of his love for 
Sybil or Sybil’s for him than this flood of light, full 


186 The Money Market . 

not of tlie strength of violence and effort, but full 
of the strength that is more than these, the strength 
of stillness, which is above all effort and striving. 

To-morrow he would tell Sybil all. He would 
confess and ask her pardon for the wrong he had 
done her in his thoughts, and say that which must 
surely have sprung into her mind as instinctively 
as it had sprung into his, that they must give all 
this up, without demur or reservation. 

Percy turned from the window and undressed. 
He had conquered ; that of him which was best 
and truest had vanquished his doubts. But he 
deserved his penance for his treason, and would 
confess it to Sybil. And he went to bed and slept. 


CHAPTER XIV* 

Sybil Decides. 

The weather seemed disposed, in spite of Percy’s 
momentary accusations of its want of sympathy 
with the puny creature known as Man, to continue 
to pay its congratulations to his coming of age. 
The next morning dawned bright, cool and invi- 
gorating ; a more perceptible hint of frost was in 
the air, and the exquisite, indefinable smell of an 
autumn morning. The beeches, earliest of the 
trees to wear their red and yellow liveries, were 
already beginning to put on the gorgeousness of 
their brief colouring. Thrushes scudded across the 
lawn, and broke into a perfect torrent of repeated 
melody as they found and devoured their breakfast ; 
and rooks, with feathers so shiny that they looked 
as if they must have been lately blacked and pol- 
ished, strode like soldiers over the meadows below. 
The guests were all, with the exception of Lady 
Otterbourne and Sybil, to leave by morning trains, 
and the breakfast at half-past nine mustered a full 
complement. 

Percy had awoke that morning with a strange 
feeling of having escaped from some mortal dan- 
ger, and Blessington, next door, heard him sing- 
ing in his bath, an indubitable mark of un- 

187 


188 


The Money Market . 

clouded spirits ; and, indeed, his song did not 
belie him. He found himself rid of the intolerable 
doubts of the evening before, and in the relief oc- 
casioned by the removal of such a burden, it is 
soberly true that he gave not a thought to the 
matter of the sealed letter. His fortune he regarded 
as gone, and might all ill go with it ! For a few 
hours it had been his, and those few hours had con- 
tained for him the worst moments of his life, when, 
the evening before, he had wrestled with his doubts. 
To-day he no longer regarded it as his, for his deter- 
mination was fixed. It had been made excitedly, 
but in the cool morning he found it cool and stable. 
That change in his worldly prospects, enormous as 
it might seem to others, weighed at the present 
moment nothing to him in comparison with his 
fixed conviction that Sybil was no less his than 
before. In the wonderful truth of that every other 
circumstances of life seemed to him valueless and 
without colour. Looking at his own life and 
environment as he would have looked at a picture, 
it seemed to him that the great flood of light 
(Sybil, no less) which covered it, drowned all 
details in a luminous haze. The picture was daz- 
zling to look upon, he could only discern broad 
outlines. The details it would be his business to 
examine now, but his waking thoughts that morn- 
ing gave him no uneasiness in their regard. Noth- 
ing could be wrong while that glorious sunshine 
flooded his heart. 


189 


The Money Market . 

It was not yet mid-day when the last of his 
guests drove to the station, leaving him alone 
with Sybil and her mother. He had asked Lord 
Stoakley and Mr. Sale to dine with him that 
night in London, as he had affairs of importance 
to talk over with them. Both guessed more or 
less completely what these affairs were, and Lord 
Stoakley at least felt somewhat dismayed when he 
saw that Sybil was waiting till later. He urged 
Percy to put off any talk with her till he had 
discussed the matter with his executors, but he 
with a radiant face had refused. He only suc- 
ceeded in getting from the young man a promise 
that he would do nothing rashly. If he had known 
what a different idea Percy attached to the word, 
he would not have taken his departure even in 
comparative ease of mind. 

Sybil and her mother were waiting for him in the 
hall as he saw his last guests off. 

“Well, Percy, we remain,” said Lady Otter- 
bourne, “and you have to prove to us that your 
affair is of more importance than the dressmakers.” 

“ I think you will agree with me,” said Percy. 
“ Let us go into the library. Oh, it is God’s own 
morning !” 

They went in silence up the corridor and turned 
into the library. The sun was shining in at the 
window and he drew down the blinds a little. 
Then standing in front of them, he spoke, smiling, 
at ease, confident. 


190 


The Money Market . 


“I have read my grandfather’s sealed letter,” he 
said. “ I read it directly after I left you last night, 
Sybil, before dinner. At first I was horrified, dis- 
gusted ; and I think last night at dinner I was 
almost light-headed because I knew what I had to 
do, and it seemed difficult. But this morning I 
hardly think of that at all, I have got my focus 
again. But, indeed, it would be rather absurd if I 
thought of anything except one thing.” 

And he stretched out his hand to Sybil. 

She was looking at him with a sort of puzzled 
intentness. She gave her hand to him, and he 
held it while he continued : 

“Yes, it was terrible at first, and it was the more 
terrible because the devil tempted me and I doubted 
you, Sybil. No, you do not understand yet. Wait. 
I will make myself quite plain.” 

Again he looked at her ; but her eye caught his 
only for a moment, for she turned her head and 
gave one penetrating glance at her mother. Lady 
Otterbourne, busy with her own thoughts, did not 
notice Sybil, and only frowned impatiently at Percy. 

“Go on, dear Percy,” she said. “ Go on.” 

There was something in the impatience and sus- 
pense of her face that startled him. She looked 
like a woman who expects to have terrible revela- 
tions made her. From her he glanced back to 
Sybil, whose hand still lay in his. He pressed it 
gently, and did not notice how mechanical was the 
pressure she returned. 


191 


The Money Market . 

“Yes, I have begun in the middle,” he said. 
“ Look, here is the beginning. My grandfather’s 
sealed communication told me the history of his 
fortune. He made his money, three million 
pounds, as you know, by money-lending. He did 
not use his own name in the business. And one of 
the houses was Gore’s, another was Appleton’s,, and 
the third was Samuelson’s.” 

Lady Otterbourne suddenly gave a little gasp, 
and Sybil turned to her. 

“What is it, mother?” she asked. “What is 
it?” 

Percy looked at Lady Otterbourne in silence a 
moment. 

“Yes, of Jermyn Street,” he said. 

“What is it, mother?” asked Sybil again. 

“Nothing!” said Lady Otterbourne. “Go on, 
Percy.” 

Percy paused, chilled and disappointed. He had 
pictured to himself that Sybil at this point would 
look at him with a moment’s transitory horror, and 
then with pure pity. “Oh, poor Percy!” he had 
imagined her saying, with swift womanlike intui- 
tion, “ but what does it matter if we are not rich ?” 
But Sybil did nothing of the sort. When her 
mother did not answer her question, she looked 
back at him, and withdrew her hand. For a mo- 
ment the doubt again assailed him. It was a bad 
omen. 

“ Yes, it is awful, Percy,” she said, in a cool, dry 


192 The Money Market . 

voice. “ But I imagine no one knows. And is 
there any reason why anybody should ? Are you 
thinking of shutting up the businesses? I hope 
you won’t do anything in a hurry. Was that what 
L,ord Stoakley meant when he asked you to do 
nothing rashly? We must think it all over.” 

He stood there looking at her blankly, and she 
saw she had made a mistake. 

“ Dear Percy,” she went on, “it is terrible for 
you. I know how you must feel it. Perhaps you 
are right, for I see what you mean to do : to have 
no more at all to do with the thing. But you will 
talk to Lord Stoakley and Mr. Sale first, will you 

not? Will you forfeit much if ” and she 

stopped. 

Percy sat down. 

“Is that all you have to say, Sybil?” he asked. 

“All? No! I have a great deal to say. But 

you are so queer, Percy. I never know ” and 

again she stopped helplessly. 

Dady Otterbourne recovered from her stupor of a 
moment, and became a hard, clever woman again. 

“Sybil, you are quite intolerably stupid,” she 
said, sharply. “ Do you not see ? Percy, you are 
wrong. You are meaning to do an absurd thing. 
And” — she spoke with slow emphasis — “you do 
not know what it may lead to.” 

Sybil looked frightened. 

“I do not understand,” she said, helplessly. 
“What are vou meaning to do, Percy?” 


193 


The Money Market . 

u He is meaning to give everything up, of 
course,” said Rady Otterbourne. “Really, Sybil, 
at times you are extraordinarily slow. He intends 
to give up everything that came from this money- 
lending business. What proportion does that bear 
to the whole, Percy?” 

Percy kicked a footstool aside. For the moment 
he felt perfectly hard and businesslike. 

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “ I have not yet 
troubled to enquire exactly what my grandfather 
was worth before he went into this ; but of this I 
am sure, that, instead of being a rich man, I shall 
be rather poor. That is a detail at present. It will 
be necessary for me, for instance, to give up this 
house ; to sell it or let it again. This certainly will 
be out of proportion to my means. I daresay I shall 
have two or three thousand a year.” 

Rady Otterbourne got up with a quick movement, 
as if closing the interview. 

“It is impossible,” she said, quickly. “You may 
take it from me that it is altogether impossible. I 
am against it altogether. My poor boy, you don’t 
know what it means ; you have no conception how 
unhappy and worried for money it is possible to be 
on that sort of income. Besides you have not only 
yourself to think for.” 

Percy looked at Sybil, not listening to Rady Ot- 
terbourne’ s words— hardly, indeed, hearing them. 
She had fixed her eyes on the carpet and was staring 
at it intently. He was stung suddenly by an intol- 
13 


104 The Money Market . 

erable pain, and felt himself helpless in the grip 
of it 

“Sybil, speak!” he cried. “Tell me that you 
agree with me ! How can I do anything else?” 

Sybil raised her eyes. 

“I cannot tell you that,” she said calmly, “be- 
cause I disagree with you altogether. What you 
are proposing to do is out of the question. It is as 
mamma says,” she went on with gathering energy. 
“You are not alone in this. Do you not consider 
me at all? It is impossible I should live in that 
sort of way. How often have you told me that 
yourself Percy? How often you have told me that 
I was born to all that is splendid and magnificent ! 
I will not allow you to do this. You shall not. 
Cut off all connection with these houses if you will : 
sell them, realise : I do not know what you call it. 
Even that would be quixotic, and to me absurd. 

But the other ! You think only of yourself; 

you are selfish ! ” 

For one moment Percy could not believe that the 
words he heard uttered in that cold, calm voice were 
Sybil’s. He thought he must be the victim of some 
gigantic hoax that his ears were playing him. It 
was impossible that she could have spoken so ! 
Eady Otterbourne, standing by the chimney-piece, 
said nothing, and in the pause that followed Percy 
found himself just staring blankly in front of him, 
without thought, and stunned. At last Eady Otter- 
bourne spoke. 


The Money Market 195 

“ You had better go away, Sybil,” she said; “I 
want to talk it over quietly with Percy.” 

At that he looked at her. 

“Why should Sybil go?” he asked. “It is a 
matter that concerns her ; the matter concerns us 
equally.” 

“It will be better,” said Lady Otterbourne, nod- 
ding to Sybil. “ I want to talk to you alone. You 
shall see Sybil again afterwards. Go, Sybil.” 

“Sybil shall do as she pleases,” broke in Percy. 

“Certainly,” said Lady Otterbourne, icily. 
“Which will you do, Sybil? You shall please 
yourself, as Percy says.” 

“ I will go,” she said. 

She went out of the library and down the corri- 
dor to the room that had been Percy’s mother’s and 
that was to be hers. Her microscopic soul, not 
large enough for two emotions at a time, nor even 
for one fine one, was in a tumult. She was lost in 
agitated self-pity and dismay. She was furious with 
Percy, though she hardly yet believed that he was 
serious. He was mad, he was a lunatic to contem- 
plate such a thing. It was inconceivable that he 
should do it. It must be stopped. She would urge 
him, entreat him, she would even — yes, she would 
even threaten him. How could she think that it 
was possible for her to let him do this ? He loved 
her — good : let him show his love, not by sacrificing 
himself, but by refusing to sacrifice her. He spoke 
of giving up Abbotsworthy as if that was a thing 


196 


The Money Market . 


easily done, a matter of no moment. She could not 
contemplate that and all that it implied. As for the 
threat, she did not soberly believe that it would be 
necessary to use that. Percy was not a fool ; he 
must see that he was contemplating an impossible 
thing. As she swept up and down the room, the 
smallness of her tremendous agitation was almost 
sublime. 

Meantime Lady Otterbourne was having her talk 
with Percy. She was somewhere about ten times 
as clever as Sybil; and, certainly, her method was 
ingenious, considering how unexpected the crisis 
had been and how impossible to foresee. As soon 
as Sybil had left the room, she advanced to him and 
held out her hand. 

u Percy,” she said, “ I honour you for your idea. 
It is like you. Come, let us talk it over quietly. 
Sybil, poor child, was so upset that she was quite 
nonsensical. You must not regard what she said. 
I could have boxed her ears when she called yoil 
selfish.” 

Poor Percy caught wildly at any hope. 

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” he said. “But 
don’t blame Sybil: I broke it to her too violently; 
it was stupid of me. But you see, do you not, liow 
it is with me? The money is vile; it is a filthy 
thing, acquired villainously. It is no question of 
choice with me: the thing has to be done; it has 
all to be given up. Do you not see the horror of 
the thing? Think only of one instance — yourself. 


197 


The Money Marketi 

It has been I who gave you all that worry and 
trouble in the summer over your debt. It is I who 
was bleeding you. What would have happened if 
you had not come to me? There are hundreds 
like you, whom I have been pressing and grinding 
down, or I should not be so rich. Any night at 
dinner I may sit next a woman from whom I wring 
the money to keep up this house. Samuelson, of 
Jermyn Street ! Here he is.” 

Percy flung his hands apart, and stood looking at 
L,ady Otterbourne with wide eyes and parted mouth. 
For one flashing moment she caught something of 
this thought which so covered him with shame, the 
next her habitual self resumed its sway. But she 
had seen how deep-rooted his resolve was, and, 
though she went on calmly enough, the fear that 
she was fighting a losing battle suggested itself. 

“ Do not say those things, Percy,” she said. “ It 
is horrible, no doubt; but at the thought of you and 
Sybil I cannot at this moment bring myself to re- 
gard anything else as of consequence. And now, 
Percy, I want you to give me your very best atten- 
tention. As I said, and as I repeat, I honour you 
for the impulse which makes you feel as if you can 
keep nothing of what was got by the money-lend- 
ing. But you have to look at the question from all 
sides. At present you have only looked at it from 
one, you have only considered it in the light of your 
natural repugnance. It would be strange if you 
did not feel it. Yes, I know, Sybil did not, but 


198 


The Money Market . 

you must be indulgent: slie was terribly upset at it 
all. The money, as you so rightly say, is dirtied; 
filthy you called it, I think. But Sybil, was there 
nothing in what Sybil said ? — though of course the 
poor child was very wild and exaggerated. Have 
you thought of her ? ’ ’ 

“ I never thought it possible that she would dis- 
agree with me,” said Percy. “ I was bitterly and 
ciuelly disappointed. I imagined that she must see 
the question as I saw it, and as you see it ! ” he 
added. 

u You are right when you say that I see it as you 
do,” said Lady Otterbourne. “ I see it fully from 
your point of view, but I also see it from other 
points of view as well.” 

“There can be no other point of view,” said 
Percy, hotly. “ And if I, to whom this all belongs, 
see only the side which means to me so great a loss, 
is not that enough ? ” 

“It would be enough if you were alone in the 
matter,” said L,ady Otterbourne. “But you are 
not. You must consider Sybil.” 

“I will talk to Sybil,” said Percy, eagerly. “I 
will persuade her that I am right.” 

“You will try, of course,” said Tady Otter- 
bourne; “ I have no objection to that.” 

“ You think I shall not move her?” said Percy. 

“ I am sure you will not.” 

“What then ? ” he asked. 


The Money Market. 199 

“ It is to be hoped that she will persuade you,” 
she said. 

“That I am sure she will not,” said he. “And 
again what then?” 

L,ady Otterbourne hated these direct unveiled 
questions. She was not naturally an unkindly wo- 
man, and she wanted, not only to persuade Percy, 
but to spare him pain. 

“You will have to ask Sybil about that,” she 
said. 

“Will not Sybil be guided by you ? ” 

“ I shall not attempt to influence her,” said L,ady 
Otterbourne. 

“ That is not kind to me.” 

“You wrong me,” she said; “it is the greatest 
kindness I could do you. If I attempted to in- 
fluence Sybil, my influence would not be directed 
in the way you hope.” 

“ You agree with her then, that I am wrong.” 

“ Yes,” she said. “As I told you, I admire your 
impulse ; but, as I tell you now, your action is ut- 
terly impracticable. You would be mad to give up, 
especially when you are utterly innocent, a prince- 
ly fortune because it was made in ways which you 
do not approve of. I, by one of those curious coin- 
cidences which are so common, know more of the 
ways of money-lenders than you. They are extor- 
tionate, grasping, and it is a nefarious trade. But 
the people to blame are those who, like myself, 
have been willing to satisfy their demands. All 


200 The Money Market . 

mankind makes money at the expense of other peo- 
ple, and it is only because they do so in what I 
may call an elemental manner, without any of 
those softening pretexts which conceal the bare 
facts, that you think as you do. Supposing your 
grandfather had been a great lawyer. If you con- 
sider that closely you would find that he must then 
have made a quantity of money by successfully de- 
fending guilty people and also by his ingenious at- 
tacks on others who in his heart he believed to be 
innocent. That is not a pretty trade if you look 
closely at it. Yet the law is an honourable pro- 
fession.” 

Percy shook his head. 

u It is not the same thing,” he said. 

“ When you run it to the ground it is,” she re- 
plied, u and if you think over it, you will agree 
with me. But all that after all is a very, minor 
point. You have pledged your word to marry Sy- 
bil, and you have promised to make her, as far as 
in you lies, a happy woman. It is therefore im- 
possible for you to do this. What sort of a poor 
man’s wife would she make ? It is not enough that 
you are in love with each other. Ordinary daily 
intercourse will not exist on such a diet. Do you 
think she would have consented to marry you if 
you had been poor ? Do not reply obviously and 
untruly, arid say: ‘Was it then for my wealth that 
she promised to marry me?’ Of course it was not. 
But it was necessary for her, as she felt, and as I 


201 


The Money Market . 

felt, to marry a mail out of a certain circle, a man 
with wealth and position. When a princess mar- 
ries a man of royal blood, is it that she loves her 
husband only because he is royal ? Of course it is 
not, though she could not marry anyone who was 
not royal.” 

Percy had lit a cigarette and was blowing smoke 
rings apparently with unconcerned carelessness. 
Lady Otterbourne knew, however, that his undi- 
vided attention was hers. 

“I will not remind you of what the world will 
think,” she went on, “because I don’t suppose you 
care a pin what the world will think. But what 
you must consider is that you are not alone. I do 
not wish to say unpleasant things ; but what I have 
told you about Sybil is true. She cannot be a poor 
man’s wife. Consequently you must give up your 
idea.” 

Percy suddenly broke out into a laugh. 

“ I am sure that you believe that what you say is 
true/’ he said ; “ but to me it is comic and incred- 
ible. Do you seriously believe that Sybil will give 
me up? You see, I can laugh at the idea. Last 
night, it is true, I was beset by a hundred vague 
and maddening doubts. I wronged her, so I believe, 
utterly and horribly. Again and again, during this 
interview with you, they have beset me, and I have 
thrust them aside. I cling to my faith. Sybil give me 
up? I shall not even hint in the remotest manner 
to her that such a thing is possible. I shall listen 


202 


The Money Market . 

to what she has to say about this matter with my 
best attention, for that is due to her, as I have lis- 
tened to you. But you have failed to convince me 
altogether. You have in no way shaken me. I 
cannot — it is physically impossible for me — to use 
the money that has been got in such a manner. I 
am ready and willing to be convinced if I can be 
convinced. You have tried. Sybil shall try. I 
am not doing an easy thing, but I am doing what 
seems to me an inevitable one.” 

He stood up as he spoke, and threw away the end 
of his cigarette. Inconceivable as his resolve was 
to her, and fervently as she hoped that she and 
Sybil would be able to make him abandon it, L,ady 
Otterbourne could not help feeling a certain invol- 
untary admiration for him. His belief that Sybil 
could, or even would, marry him if he gave his 
money up ; his utter negligence of whether he would 
leave himself a competence or not ; his reckless, un- 
considered casting away of three millions of money, 
were foolish and absurd, it is true, but they were 
faults on the grand scale ; and L,ady Otterbourne, 
with all her limited horizon and her unlimited 
worldliness, was able to appreciate the grand scale, 
whether it manifested itself in breeding or morals 
or temperament. But it was not worth such sacri- 
fices as these, and she spoke with regret and grow- 
ing seriousness. 

“A word more,” she said. “You must consider 
that this revelation has but lately been made to 


203 


The Money Market . 

you ; that you are stung and hurt by the blow. In 
a few days, or in a few weeks, it will get appre- 
ciably less ; you will get used to it ” 

“Ah! I do not want to get used to it,” cried 
Percy, “ nor is it possible for me to contemplate 
getting used to it. A course of crime makes one 
used to crimes, I daresay, but one does not advise 
it.” 

His words were exaggerated, and L,ady Otter- 
bourne seized on them. 

“You are talking foolishly,” she cried, “as if 
crime had anything to do with it. You are not 
human this morning ; you do not recollect that you 
live in the world ; you are like that terrible Parsifal 
we saw and argued about at Baireutli. What you 
say just shows that you are yet in no fit state to de- 
cide anything. Put your decision off, at any rate 
put it off for a month. Put the marriage off too, if 
you will.” 

She stopped suddenly ; she had not meant to say 
quite that. It amounted almost to a threat, and 
anything of the nature of a threat she knew would 
only goad Percy on. She looked at him. He had 
grown suddenly white to the lips. 

“ Do I understand you, do you think ? ” he asked 
quietly. 

“ I am making myself very plain,” she said in 
desperation, now the thing was done. “ When you 
go to talk to Sybil you will see. Percy, I am speak- 
ing soberly, in order to warn you. She cannot 


204 


The Money Market . 

marry a poor man, and she will not. Do you want 
to wreck your happiness, to wreck hers ? It is right 
to warn you : it may come to that.” 

Percy moved towards the door. 

“ It is no use putting anything off,” he said. “ I 
shall see Sybil at once ; it is impossible that I 
should wait any longer without seeing her. I will 
come to you here again.” 

He left the library and went down the corridor 
to his mother’s room. Sybil was sitting in the 
window-seat, with a very fixed, sharp look on her 
face. She had not heard Percy’s step across the 
thick carpet, and he had already approached her 
when she saw him. He looked at her in piteous 
appeal. 

“ Sybil,” he said, “Sybil!” 

Sybil had spent a fruitless half-hour. She could 
not imagine what she should say to him. She rose, 
passed by him and shut the door into the corridor. 

“Well,” she said at length, “lias mamma per- 
suaded you ? Have you given up that stupid, im- 
possible idea? Oh, Percy,” and a sudden anxiety 
struck her, “ tell me you have given it up ! ” 

Percy shook his head. 

Sybil sat down in a chair and began to sob. 

“ Oh, you are cruel,” she said. “ You do not love 
me in the least. You care for nothing but your 
own pride. Perhaps you never loved me ; for now, 
when you have an opportunity of doing something 
for me, you will not do it! ” 


205 


The Money Market. 

“Sybil,” cried Percy, in a sort of despair, “do 
you not understand? Can you not have mercy 
upon me? I cannot take the money. It would 
sicken and poison me. You do not know ; but can- 
not you take my word for it that it is so? What 
does the money matter ? I shall have enough ; we 
shall be able to live comfortably ; you will have as 
much as you have ever had. There will be ” 

Percy paused ; words seemed futile. 

“Answer me!” he cried at length. “Your 
mother has frightened me horribly ! Supposing 
I go my own way — supposing I give up all this 
hideous dross, will you or will you not give me up ? 
God, that I should have to ask you that ! But I am 
frightened ; I don’t know what I am saying ! ” His 
voice had risen almost to a scream, and he paused 
a moment and wiped from his forehead the dew of 
his anguish. Then, in a quieter tone, “ So answer 
me, Sybil,” he said, “and then forgive me for ever 
having asked you.” 

It seemed to him that he waited years for her to 
answer, that in the pause that followed he grew old 
and grey, and that his youth passed and was re- 
membered by him only as a dream. He sat with 
his face buried in his hands, and heard only her sob- 
bing and the metallic insistent ticking of the clock 
on the mantelpiece. She sobbed once, he noticed, 
for every three times that it ticked. And still she 
did not answer. 

After a while he rose. 


206 


The Money Market . 

“ You have nothing then to say to me,” he asked, 
in a curious hard dry voice. 

She said nothing; and Percy, bending, kissed 
her on the forehead and on the hair. Then he left 
the room. 

Lady Otterbourne was in the corridor. 

u I have asked Sybil,” he said ; u you had better 
go to her. She would not answer me. I asked 
her whether she would marry me if I gave up the 
money. She could not say she would. And I 
think you had better lunch in her room, and go up 
to town, as you arranged, directly after. I shall be 
at my flat in London. Please communicate with 
me there. If you do not, I shall know. ’ ’ 


CHAPTER XV. 

An Experiment. 

A WEEK afterwards Percy was still in London, 
living alone at his flat. A short, bald paragraph 
had appeared in the daily press, between the move- 
ments of the German Emperor’s yacht and the 
announcement of a new piece at the Lyceum, say- 
ing that his marriage with Lady Sybil Attwood 
would not take place. The world read it with a 
certain amount of interest, talked about it a little 
in the evening at its shooting-lodges in Scotland, 
and shrugged its shoulders when it learned the 
reason for the rupture. 

Percy, meantime, since he left Abbots worthy, 
had stupefied himself with work in company with 
Mr. Sale ; and that rubicund little gentleman was 
worn to a shadow of himself. By the end of a 
week they had got through the bulk of the demoli- 
tion : the three businesses had been broken up, the 
three managers had been handsomely pensioned, 
and Satnuelson’s, Appleton’s and Gore’s were no 
more. Percy had gone into the smallest details 
with great attention, and dwelt with a sort of in- 
credulous horror on the methods by which he had 
been made rich. Sometimes he used to wonder 
whether, if Sybil had known as much as Lady 

207 


208 The Money Market . 

Otterbourne or liimsclf about tlie trade, she would 
have thought that there was anything more than 
madness at the root of his action. But he did not 
encourage such speculations, and for the present 
gave himself no time for regrets or grief. Tired at 
the end of each day, he slept well, and shortened 
the waking moments by getting up as soon as he 
was called. The outstanding debts from various 
people who had borrowed money he had called in, 
taking, however, only the original principal with 
interest at 4 instead of 60 per cent. ; and the total 
sum he had given anonymously to about a dozen 
national institutions, for the most part hospitals. 
The residue, consisting of his father’s original for- 
tune and the money left him by his mother, was 
found to amount to about a hundred and twenty 
thousand pounds ; and, consequently, he was still 
very comfortably off, and had to make no change 
whatever in his personal expenses. But had it 
been otherwise he would have treated any result 
with perfectly unassumed indifference. Abbots- 
wortliy had been put up for sale, and there was 
already a possible purchaser for it, namely Mr. 
Carnegie, who had apparently at last decided to 
settle down in England, and leave the United 
States. It was even supposed also that he was 
engaged to be married ; but this had been supposed 
so often, that no one paid much attention to it. 

During this week Percy hardly knew whether 
he suffered or not. Suffering, it seemed to him, 


The Money Market . 209 

was not the right word for the coldness and utter 
indifference to everything that sat in his heart. 
Since he parted with Sybil and L,ady Otterbourne 
at Abbotsworthy, he had seen Sybil not at all, and 
her mother only once. The interview had been 
hopeless and useless, and when it was over he 
thought that he would have been wiser not to 
have seen her. She came, she told him, not from 
Sybil, but on her own responsibility, to ask him 
whether there was any chance of his reconsidering 
what he had proposed to do. But already he had 
begun the division and distribution of his property, 
and even if he had not, he could not have promised 
her the faintest chance of his changing. He did 
not even ask after Sybil, and half wondered to him- 
self whether a sort of necrotic process had set in in 
his heart. 

Suddenly the whole of the last six months had 
passed in his mind into a state of utter unreality. 
He had been worshipping, so he told himself, a 
dream -like creation of his own, and at a moment 
when Sybil showed her real self to him she ceased 
to be real at all. She had broken his dream, and 
wakened him into reality : it was morning, and 
hard light streamed in at the windows. He had 
imagined a beautiful soul, a fit inhabitant of her 
peerless body, and he had found that from that 
splendid shell there looked out a spirit that w r as 
false and base and utterly untrue. In a moment 
the fabric of his dream had been shattered, and he 
14 


210 


The Money Market . 

was left not with a regret, but a dreary wonder 
which mocked him that he had been so deceived. 
In a day he seemed to have lived with his disillu- 
sionment a lifetime. 

At present he made no plans of any kind ; as long 
as the work of the disposal of his property lasted 
he merely lived as from day to day, through a suc- 
cession of busy hours. He had already got two 
months’ leave from the Foreign Office, and he sup- 
posed, for he did not intend anything, that he 
should spend them in London alone. Ernest Fel- 
lowes had seen him once when he heard the news, 
but he had been unable to help or stir him in any 
way. Simply he had been grossly deceived, and 
he declined for the present to have anything more 
to do with the world. The game no longer inter- 
ested him, and he stood aside, without complaint, 
but contemptuous. Blanche Stoakley had not 
tried to see him, but she had written to him, and the 
note showed at any rate that she understood him. 

“I hear you are in London,” she said ; “but as 
you wish to see no one, I will not come. Let me 
know, however, if at any future time I can in any 
way help you. You have been crully deceived. I 
daresay you are right to be by yourself ; anyhow 
that is your instinct, which I do not want to ques- 
tion. We come up to Loudon soon after Christ- 
mas; till then we are at Langton. Oh, Percy, 
Percy! ...” 


211 


The Money Market . 

One morning — the first on which his attendance 
was not necessary at Mr. Sale’s office — Percy, hav- 
ing breakfasted, strolled to the window and looked 
out on the street. The traffic up and down St. 
James’ poured by in a ceaseless stream, and the 
pavements were crowded. A thin drizzle was fall- 
ing from a sky which was yellowish-gray and un- 
luminous, like a jaundiced skin, and the tone of 
the streets exactly matched that sombre hue of 
overhead. The wooden pavement was greasy and 
yellow ; umbrellas, without visible reason for their 
movement as seen from above, bobbed and jolted 
past his window, black and shining with the fine 
rain : the whole view was an apotheosis of sordid, 
unrelieved gloom. Percy could not invent an extra 
detail which should make the scene more dreary, 
nor could he see a single object which gave it any 
brightness. Horses, cabs, people, sky, pavement, 
were grouped into one masterpiece, the title of 
which might have been ‘‘Hopeless.” Certainly 
the flames of the pit would be less terrible than an 
eternity of St. James’ Street on such a morning. 
As he looked a horse of an omnibus which was 
passing down the street slipped and fell, and was 
dragged on a few yards by the impetus of the 
vehicle. It struggled gallantly to regain its feet ; 
but it seemed doubtful if it could, when the driver, 
with a sudden savage lash of his whip, gave it the 
necessary effort. Percy turned back into his room 
with a shudder ; that one touch had completed the 


212 The Money Market . 

picture. He wondered whether his own driver 
would soon lash him to his feet again. At present 
he felt that he was between the shafts and lying on 
the pavement. 

A small fire was burning in his grate, and he lit a 
cigarette and looked at the cheerful flapping flames 
for a minute or two. Suddenly a phrase from the 
letter of his grandfather came unbidden into his 
mind, and he repeated it aloud. “ La consolation 
des arts,” he said ; “La consolation des arts.” He 
rose from his chair and walked up and down the 
room. A flicker of interest, momentary it might 
be, had come into his mind, and he remembered 
that it was at least ten days since he had been 
interested in anything ; it was as if a thrush had 
suddenly trilled a bar of song, or as if a child had 
laughed. Several years ago he had come across the 
phrase in a book of Gautier’s, and for a moment it 
had arrested him. Then he remembered that his 
grandfather had quoted the phrase, assigning it to 
Flaubert, and to satisfy himself he took down the 
volume of Gautier where it occurred and verified 
it. On first reading it he remembered that he had 
felt unable to decide whether the idea it contained 
was merely a truism, or whether on the other hand 
it was not true at all. Obviously there was much 
to be got from beautiful things, none knew that 
better than he ; on the other hand, he remembered 
wondering whether in time of great mental dis- 
tress the arts would be found to administer any 


213 


The Money Market . 

alleviation or opiate. The only instance he could 
think of within his personal experience was in the 
reading of old volumes of Punch while waiting in 
the dentist’s consulting-room, and the consolation 
they had afforded him had been of the slightest. 

He had not consciously come across the phrase 
again till his last birthday, when he met it in his 
grandfather’s letter. At the time he had not paid 
any particular attention to it ; but now, when it 
again sprang into his mind, it was strangely arrest- 
ing. For what after all were the great and the real 
things in life? What warrant was there for suppos- 
ing that a bitter or even a broken heart was more 
intolerable than a disappointment of the intellect or 
of the artistic sense? If one of the supreme painters 
of the world had ever had to choose between his 
wife and his sense of line and colour, and had de- 
cided to sacrifice the latter, would the tragedy of his 
own life be less that way than the other? And if, 
without his choice, his affections were disappointed, 
would he not be thrice and four times a madman 
not to fling himself into the other passion which 
had been given him ? A passion for a woman might 
last a year or ten years, even twenty, but the force 
and splendour of the passion must inevitably pale 
and weaken. How different it was with an artist 
who lived at the white-hot temperature ! The 
longer he worshipped his divine mistress, the more 
passionately loving his worship became ! 

In life one harsh event might mar a dozen lovely 


214 


The Money Market . 

years, its poison staining backwards as well as for- 
wards. In Art no sucli catastrophe could be possi- 
ble, nothing could hurt or dim what had once been 
fair. 

Percy paused in his walk round his room, and 
looked up at the walls. The dreamy child’s face 
by Greuze which hung over his writing-table was 
no less lovely than it had ever been ; the terra-cotta 
from Tanagra had lost none of its grace, its pose 
was as perfect as ever ; and the under sides of the 
leaves of the trees which overhung the waterfall in 
his little Turner water-colour, bright and illumina- 
ted from the reflection of the sun on the water, were 
no less delicate, no less finely observed or accurately 
executed. The tragedies of life did not touch Art : 
whatever events might take place in that blind, 
hazardous, rough-and-tumble affair, here was a 
sanctuary which could not be violated, where the 
breath of morning was ever cool and there were 
trees for the stress of noonday. Sybil had deceived 
him, or, as he was quite ready to admit, he had de- 
ceived himself, and that deception had spoiled and 
destroyed his pleasure in people. Iyife seemed crude 
and cruel : its violence had battered and beaten 
him. But what if his refuge was here? 

Again, to take the collective experience of the 
race, what, to anyone who possessed an artistic 
sense, were the greatest tragedies and the greatest 
triumphs of which the world had known? Certain 
of them no doubt were events taking place on the 


215 


The Money Mcii'ket . 

theatre of life, acted by living men and women ; but 
were there not others, events which had never taken 
place, the fruit of mind and imaginations, which 
could not be called less real, which were as impor- 
tant an ingredient in the dose of consciousness 
which we are given every morning as anything 
which actually happened during the day? About 
certain crises in the history of the world, historians 
were still in doubt whether they actually took place 
or not, but what did that matter if Art had touched 
them? Their historical truth did not affect their 
reality. If it could be proved that Helen of Troy 
never lived, if Agamemnon was only a creation of 
Homer, if excavation showed that Troy was only a 
third-rate village in an unimportant corner of Asia 
Minor, would that make the Iliad less real ? Who 
cared whether Hamlet was a historical or a real 
person ? What did it matter whether Shakespeare 
owed anything to tedious chronicles or not? Ham- 
let was real to him, Percy Gerard, not because he 
had actually lived and eaten mutton and feigned 
(or not feigned) madness, but because the art of 
Shakespeare had made him real. Should we not 
lose more if Shakespeare was lost to the world than 
we should gain if we found a contemporary and 
unimpeachable account of Macbeth, and a police- 
court record of the murder? What was our inherit- 
ance from the Greeks? Not the inventions, not 
even the patriotic examples of the Athenians at 
Marathon, or the Spartans at Thermopylae, but a 


216 The Money Market . 

few marble limbs of gods, a few statuettes and vases, 
a few dramas. 

La coiisolation des arts became suddenly lu minous. 
It ceased to be a truism to him, and it became true, 
a workable and practical statement of fact. Percy 
felt as if he had been dead and the hour of res- 
urrection was on him. Because he had been de- 
ceived, or because he had deceived himself in a 
woman, he had thought that nothing was good, 
nothing was true, and he had pronounced that the 
world and all that it contained was not worth an 
empty nut. He had had a smash, and he had no 
intention of letting such a thing be possible again, 
but in the debris that surrounded him he found 
that a whole waggonful of the things of life had 
not had a scratch. The whole realm of Art was 
as fair as it had ever been, the sun shone there 
with undiminislied brilliance, there were no greasy 
pavements there on which one could slip and 
fall and be lashed to one’s feet again. To Art St. 
James’ Street was merely a geographical expres- 
sion, and Art knew nothing and cared less about 
geography. 

A timid tap came to the door and Blessington 
entered. Percy had written to her on his arrival in 
London, saying that he had lost his money and that 
Abbotsworthy had to be sold. If she wished to 
stop there, he would try to get the purchaser, who- 
ever he might be, to let her continue in her present 
place. But if not, why there was still himself to be 


217 


The Money Market . 

looked after, and if slie would come and pour out 
liis tea for him in Tondon, it would be quite like 
old days again. Or again, she might retire and live 
comfortably on her annuity. In all his bitterness 
and disgust of life, his tenderness for his old nurse 
had never for a moment left him, and when, the day 
after, she had arrived, tremulous and tearful, he 
had for the only time broken down and had sobbed 
with his head on her knee as if he had been a little 
boy again. 

“I thought I’d look in, Master Percy, and see how 
you are this morning,” said the old lady. “And it 
is such a wet dark day, I hope you won’t think of 
going out.” 

“ I must take care a gypsy doesn’t put me under 
her cloak and run away with me,” said Percy, with 
a suddenly brightened eye. 

This was an old joke, founded on a supposed fear 
of Blessington’s when Percy was out late fishing in 
the river at Abbotsworthy, or running about the 
park, and she received it with a beaming face. 

“ Why, you look better this morning,” she said. 
“ It’s the camomile tea I gave you.” 

“And I am better, Blessington,” he replied ; “but 
I can’t stop in. I’m going to the British Museum.” 

“ That’s too far off on such a bad day ; pray-a-do 
stop in by your nice fire,” said Blessington, who 
had not the slightest idea where the British Museum 
was. “ But I thought I’d look in to see how you 
were, and if you won’t get some young gentlemen 


218 The Money Market . 

to have dinner with you to-night, for a little com- 
pany.’ ’ 

Percy considered. 

“ Yes, I think I will write a note,” he said. 

It was very short, and he addressed it to Fel- 
lowes: 

“ Come and dine to-night,” he said; “lam going 
to the British Museum, to go on with the gems. I 
have discovered something this morning, and it has 
done me a world of good — ‘ L, a consolation des arts.’ 
Gautier said it.” 

He had been studying gems when, less than a 
year ago, Sybil came into his life, and he got down 
from his shelves the British Museum catalogue with 
which he had been working. He had had it inter- 
leaved, and the pages were strewn with notes con- 
cerning the technique and workmanship of certain 
gems in that collection. As he turned over the 
pages, he felt the little spark of interest which 
Gautier’s four words had lit up in him begin to glow 
like charcoal that is fanned, and taking a hansom he 
drove off to Bloomsbury. He had obtained permis- 
sion there to have certain cases opened for him, and 
he went straight to the superb head of Alexander 
cut on an orange-coloured sard, and, giving the 
custodian his card, asked to have the case opened. 
Jeweller’s work had always a great attraction for 
him ; in the finest examples it was finished beyond 


219 


The Money Market . 

the power of the eye to follow, and the work itself 
was executed in the most imperishable and most 
precious materials. Those rows of luminous sards 
— set & jour in dark velvet — of all tints from the 
palest yellow to pigeon’s blood, those amethysts 
faded and rendered more than half opaque with age, 
the wonderful contrast between the cold white 
ground of the sardonyx and the superincumbent 
translucency of the orange stratum, — where in the 
world could you find natural beauty so apotheosized 
by Art? It was idle to paint a lily, but to cut a 
gem was to render its beauty ideal. How could the 
artist, holding the gem against the disk, or working 
at it with his graver through the oil and emery, 
have been able by the power of touch only, to 
have graven lines in which the lens could find no 
flaw? Herein sculpture excelled all other arts: the 
painter produced his effects by broad washes of 
colour, and in no painting in the world, perhaps, 
was there not one touch which revealed uncertainty; 
some shadow made opaque instead of translucent to 
conceal the weakness of colour in shade, some line 
of drawing not perfectly firm, something painted 
over. There were a hundred legitimate ways by 
which the painter could cloak a minute weakness. 
But for the gem engraver no such device was possi- 
ble ; each line had to be true, to an indivisible 
fraction of a millimeter ; it was wrought in a hard 
and stubborn material, and no painting over could 
conceal a fault. From the beginning to the end of 


220 The Money Market . 

liis work the engraver had to go, not only fault- 
lessly, but with dash and infinite spirit along the 
razor-edge of a hundred precipices ; he could never 
retrace a step, a second too long against the wheel 
spoiled all that had gone before. 

Art of this exacting kind was a severer mistress 
than the rules of life. It demanded perfection ; a 
fault, however minute, put the artist’s work into 
the second, the third, the tenth class, — it was all 
one. There were no undecided points in it: the 
thing was good, or it was bad ; everything but a 
signal success was a total failure. Above all, the 
study was absorbing, and Percy felt it an exquisite 
thing to be able to be absorbed again. 

Ernest Fellowes dined with him that evening, and 
found that Percy had recaptured his aesthetic lo- 
quacity. More than once in the last six months 
Ernest had said to him that he was only an amateur ; 
that art was only a pastime to him ; and Percy had 
denied it but feebly, for he had known that he would 
cheerfully have made a holocaust of all the pictures 
in the world for the brightness of Sybil’s eyes. To- 
night, however, Fellowes retracted the accusation. 

“I once called you a dilletante,” he said, as he 
rose to go, “ but I was wrong. I told you that you 
cared for pretty things.” 

Percy laughed. 

“That is a terrible accusation,” he said, “and I 
don’t think it was ever true. Certainly I don’t 
think it is true now !” 


221 


The Money Market . 

He paused a moment and then continued : 

“Why should I not tell you all about it? I 
made a voyage, and I was shipwrecked ; but I have 
scrambled to land, and I find I am not on a desert 
island. I mean to make no more voyages. I give 
it up. Women have become a perfect enigma to 
me. They became so as soon as I thought that 
I understood and was understood by one of them. 
Oh, I am not a misanthrope ; but my fellow-crea- 
tures are beyond my power of comprehension, and 
I don’t care for riddles. Of course Art is an eternal 
riddle ; but one makes conscious and sure steps 
towards the understanding of it. It is not so with 
people. The better you think you know them, the 
more awful is the slap in the face which you 
eventually receive. I will have no more slaps in 
the face, thank you ! I have taken sanctuary.” 

Fellowes poked the fire meditatively. 

“You were always rioting into extremes,” he 
said, “and this looks like another of them. Of 
course everyone who ever accomplishes anything 
only does it by going too far at first, and then get- 
ting gently toned down again ; and I prophecy 
that some day you will find you have gone too far. 
And then perhaps you will pack your portmanteau, 
caulk up the leaks in your boat, and go on another 
voyage.” 

“Oh, prophecy away, my dear fellow, if it amuses 
you,” said Percy, almost gaily. 

For two months Percy held rigidly to a hermit’s 


222 The Money Market . 

life. He saw no one except Fellowes occasionally, 
and witli him he talked of nothing except the par- 
ticular thing he was studying. He shut himself 
up in his room for a week at a time, going out but 
occasionally to verify something at a museum or a 
picture gallery. He had no intention of writing a 
book on any of his subjects ; simply he was filled 
with a passion of knowing all about certain schools 
of art. He worked, in fact, not like an amateur, 
but like an artist. Sometimes he found it terribly 
hard work, for in certain moments he questioned 
himself whether he was not on a futile quest, 
whether he could find happiness in such a life ; in 
others he would be suddenly filled with a desire to 
be among his fellow-creatures again, to let his heart 
rise to his lips in happy talk ; in others, he asked 
himself whether there was not something in the 
face of every man and woman which no art could 
ever express. Perhaps it was even that which Art 
was always driving at ; the supreme artist, it might 
be, was he who perfectly comprehended a man or 
a woman. But he deliberately suppressed these 
questions, and, instead of trying to answer them, 
plunged into work again. He refused to see any 
visitor, or to pay any visits ; for the time, at any 
rate, he was filled with a profound indifference to 
— almost a disgust of — the whole living world. 
There was another living world in the kingdom of 
Art, and in that, so he was ever telling himself, he 
would be safe. 


223 


The Money Market . 

Percy, in fact, made an attempt, as deliberate 
and, in its way, as criminal, as the effort of the sot 
to drown remembrance in debauchery; of the sen- 
sualist to bury the bitterness of one sin by the 
committal of another ; or of the hopeless failure 
of the coward to put an end to his life. It differed 
only in this — that he, being by nature neither 
brute nor coward, used means less coarse than gin 
or a gun to attain his end ; but the criminality of 
his purpose was the same. For life, not mere con- 
sciousness, but the sane and healthy duty of living 
in social intercourse with one’s kind, is the great 
ordinance from Heaven ; for it is nothing else than 
our duty towards our neighbour, which is our duty 
towards our God. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

The Meeting: at the Concert. 

The history of Percy’s renunciation of his property 
and his rupture with Sybil caused a certain sensa- 
tion in the little world which is called the great. 
For the most part, the sympathies of that discern- 
ing body were entirely with Sybil ; and they con- 
soled her by saying that Percy must be mad, and that 
she had had a great escape in finding it out before 
instead of after her marriage, since it would have 
been so tiresome to have married a lunatic. Hos- 
pitals and the high line were delightful things to 
read about, and it was terrible to think of all the 
poor people with cancer and all those horrors ; 
but you must take the world as you found it, espe- 
cially when you found it contained three million 
pounds for you. The world had been kind enough 
to take for granted that Sybil was going to marry 
Percy for his money, and consequently when he 
renounced it, it was not in the least surprised and 
hardly made any ill-natured remarks at the fact that 
she renounced him. She had done it, so it appeared, 
quite of her own accord ; which was lucky, since, of 
course, Lady Otterbourne would not have permitted 
the marriage. Those who had been unlucky 
enough to cross Lady Otterbourne’s wishes usually 
224 


225 


The Money Market . 

remembered it. She had an inimitable manner of 
sailing calmly on, like a big liner charging down 
on a fishing smack, leaving her unfortunate victim 
a tiny wreck on the infinite sea. Even if she was 
so forbearing as not to sink you, she bruised and 
battered you, and, so to speak, knocked all your 
paint off, which was very expensive and discon- 
certing. 

She had always been a practical woman, one who 
did not waste time after a defeat in crying or be- 
wailing herself ; and on this occasion, when Percy, 
unique among mankind, had trampled her schemes 
in the dust, she picked herself up with amazing 
swiftness, and instantly began to conduct the siege 
of Mr. Arthur Carnegie. That polite and gentle- 
manly fortress had been, it will be remembered, on 
the point of capitulation before the appearance of 
Percy, and Lady Otterbourne did not anticipate 
any long delay before it surrendered. Her guns, 
one might say, were still in position, and there was 
no fresh mobilization to be done. Carnegie, as it 
happened, was only too willing to submit, and his 
purchase of Abbotsworthy as soon as it was put up 
in the market was a strategical move to expedite 
what Eady Otterbourne looked upon as his sur- 
render. 

He was a singularly level-headed person and re- 
garded the world with a clear eye, unclouded by 
sentiment. He was by way of being a friend of 
Percy’s, and he would never have done to anyone 
15 


226 


The Money Market . 

what he considered a shabby trick. But Percy had 
broken with Sybil definitely and irrevocably, and 
no consideration, however exalted an idea one might 
have of friendship, could forbid one trying to get 
what one’s friend apparently did not want, or at any 
rate was not willing to pay the price for. Abbots- 
worthy was again in the market, and it was natural 
to suppose that Percy wanted to sell it. Carnegie 
did not attempt to tell himself that he bought it in 
order to do a kindness to Percy, but lie did emphat- 
ically tell himself that to buy it was not unkind. 
He considered the purchase, indeed, a rather clever 
move. There was a great appropriateness in Sybil’s 
becoming mistress of Abbotsworthy after all, and 
she could not fail to notice a certain significance in 
his buying it. Ever since she was engaged to Percy 
she had seemed to him more to be desired than ever, 
and his purchase was a sort of guarantee that he was 
going to settle in England. He had had a slice of 
bad luck, so he considered, when she was engaged 
to Percy, but the sequel could not have been more 
fortunate. He told himself, with perfect justice, 
that he had a way of coming out on top, and it 
seemed that this affair promised to be no exception 
to the rule. 

Percy had gone back to his work at the Foreign 
Office at the end of his two months’ leave. Why 
he did so he scarcely knew, except that he had au 
fond a strong distaste for insane proceedings, and to 
give himself no escape from his hermit’s life seemed 


227 


The Money Market . 

to him to have this tendency. Living as he did now 
among abstractions, definite facts and definite regu- 
lar work appeared to him a sort of tonic. At heart 
already he knew that he was not made for a solitary 
life ; the Arts, it is true, had consoled him, and had 
brought him through a terrible time, in which, 
except for them, he might have become bitter. But 
bitter he had not become, for he had left himself 
no time for morbid brooding. Deceived and disap- 
pointed as he felt, he had, with a certain manly 
independence, refused to dwell on the catastrophe. 
But he had gone like the drunkard to his bottle, 
and had besotted himself with tint and colour. 
Some who knew how completely he had effaced the 
affair from his mind, called him shallow, and said 
he had never loved Sybil. This was an entire mis- 
take, as those who knew him best affirmed. Among 
them was Blanche. 

He had taken to going to concerts again, and in 
the January of the next year he took a seat for four 
Wagner concerts which were to be given at St. 
James’s Hall. The first of these was rather empty, 
but on coming to the second, he saw when he 
entered the hall that the place was densely packed. 
The first piece was on the point of beginning, and 
he sidled by rows of people to his seat. As he 
reached it the music began, and taking a hasty 
glance round he saw that Sybil was sitting next 
him. Beyond her and next her was Carnegie. 

He had one moment’s impulse to leave his seat, 


228 


The Money Alarket. 

but at the next he determined to stay. He bowed 
to Sybil, who turned her face away, and settled 
himself to listen to the Tannhauser overture. It was 
exquisitely played, and before many moments were 
over he had half forgotten whom he was sitting 
next ; and when it was finished he felt no impulse 
to go, but only an immense curiosity to see what 
he himself and what Sybil would do and say. He 
found the interest of his own situation quite ab- 
sorbing. 

Carnegie also had seen him, and, when the over- 
ture was over, Percy leaned forward. 

“ How are you?” he said. “We have not met 
since September.” 

Carnegie had an immense admiration for nerve, 
and certainly Percy possessed that to a very high 
degree. His manner was absolutely easy, without 
a shade of effort to be easy. Carnegie made some 
reply, and Percy looked at Sybil. She was dressed, 
as he had so often seen her, in white, with a satin 
riband at her neck and another at her waist. Her 
dress was a sort of half-toilette, cut high at the 
neck, but somewhat short in the sleeves, which were 
covered with bunches of lace ; and she had no hat 
on. Round her neck she wore three rows of mag- 
nificent pearls, and it was not till Percy had looked 
at them twice that he remembered that they were 
those that he had given her and which she had 
never sent back. He was desperately inclined to 
laugh, the thing struck him as inexpressibly comic ; 


229 


The Money Market . 

and not till that moment did lie realize and formu- 
late to himself how completely his love for her was 
dead. He looked at her long, as he might look at 
a beautiful statue — critically and intelligently, and 
it seemed to him that she had never been so beauti- 
ful. Never had such an exquisite piece of modelling 
come from Nature’s hands ; there was no flaw in it, 
it was a piece of workmanship as fine as one of his 
favourite gems. She was breathing rather quickly, 
with suppressed but evident agitation, and the 
moonlight pearls round her neck moved gently like 
the heaving of a sea asleep. Percy saw it — saw that 
it was this meeting with him, and his long gaze at 
her, which had disconcerted her, and, with the 
quick compunction of a gentleman, he spoke to 
her. Once he had spoken, he thought she might 
be at her ease ; what he could not do was to go 
away. 

“ Lady Otterbourue is in London ?” he asked. 
“I saw in the paper she had been having influenza. 
I hope she is better. Half London seems to have 
had it.” 

The perfectly natural tone of his voice, as he had 
expected, reassured Sybil. 

“ Yes, she is better, thanks,” she said, looking at 
him for the first time. “ In fact, she meant to come 
here to-night. How beautifully they did the over- 
ture.’ } 

“Yes, it was wonderfully done,” he said. “And 
how extraordinarily full the place is. Last week 


230 


The Money Market . 

it was quite empty, but to night there really is not 
a vacant place.’ ’ 

They talked together quite naturally for a mo- 
ment or two, till the second piece began, and in the 
interval between the parts Percy and Carnegie 
strolled to the foyer and smoked a cigarette. Car- 
negie had something to say, which he found diffi- 
cult. He did not know whether certain news had 
reached Percy. In any case he thought there 
could be no harm in mentioning what he soon 
must know, even if he did not already. In any 
case, the fact that Percy had found himself and 
Sybil alone at a concert must have given him a 
hint. 

‘ ‘ It’s to come off directly after Easter, ’ ’ he said 
at length. 

Percy looked at him inquiringly for a moment. 
The remark was not d propos of what they had 
been talking about. 

“I beg your pardon,” he began, when suddenly 
he understood. “All, your marriage with Cady 
Sybil,” he said, “ I never congratulated you. Please 
accept my congratulations now.” 

He shook hands with him, then suddenly laughed. 

“It will be pleasant for her going back to Ab- 
botsworthy,” he said, with uncontrollable bitter- 
ness. “She admired Abbotsworthy enormously, I 
remember.” 

Then he recollected himself with a flush of shame 
and contrition. 


The Money Market . 231 

“ I beg your pardon,” lie said ; “I don’t know 
bow I came to say that.” 

They got back into the hall before the second 
part began, and Percy took his seat again next 
Sybil. 

“ I have to congratulate you,” he said, in a low 
voice, “ and I do so, Sybil, from my heart. I be- 
lieve you will have a very good husband, and I sin- 
cerely hope you will be happy.” 

She did not raise her eyes ; but she felt for one 
moment a pang of shame for all she had done from 
the first moment that she had seen Percy, down to 
this pitiful appearance, wearing his jewels. It was a 
sorry story that the recording angel had against her. 

“You were always generous,” she said, and her 
hand wandered nervously and involuntarily to the 
row of pearls round her neck. 

He saw the action and understood it. It was ter- 
ribly difficult either to speak or to be silent. Then, 
just as the music began : 

“They are still my wedding present to you, 
Sybil,” he said, with admirable quietness. 

She looked up at him, and he saw that her eyes 
were brimming. At that he got up, and in his 
healthy soul there was infinite pity for the girl, and 
no grain of reproach. It was a good moment. 

“ Perhaps I should have gone at once,” he whis- 
pered, “ but I wanted very much to speak to you. 
Please forgive me, Sybil.” 

And nodding to Carnegie he again sidled out past 


232 The Money Market . 

rows of indignant people, treading on pairs of 
feet which seemed quite innumerable and enor- 
mous. 

Carnegie had seen that the two words which 
Sybil and Percy had exchanged had some signifi- 
cance. He was not naturally a meddling man ; but 
he argued that when a bride-elect has a short inter- 
view with a man whom she has jilted which makes 
her cry, the bridegroom-elect has a right to ask 
what it has been about. And as they were driving 
away, he said firmly and quietly: 

‘‘Tell me what Percy said to you which made 
you cry.” 

Sybil, who was to promise to obey him in a few 
weeks’ time, had already shown signs of being will- 
ing to do so. Carnegie was not a brute ; but he w T as 
a man who got himself obeyed, and his requests 
were usually reasonable. 

“It was about the pearls,” she said, “which he 
gave me.” 

“Those you have on? ” asked he. 

“Yes.” 

“Why, they must be worth a fortune,” he said. 
“And why didn’t you send them back? I think 
that’s real mean, Sybil.” 

“I know it was,” she said; “and he has given 
me them again as a wedding present.” 

“ Well, if you can wear them now without being 
sick,” he replied with much directness, “I don’t 
mind your keeping them.” 


The Money Market. 233 

Sybil pursed her lips together. Arthur was 
almost coarse sometimes. 

“ Of course, if you say that, I shall have to send 
them back,” she said; and that salutary moment 
of shame was drowned in sudden fretful anger with 
Carnegie. 

“I am sure you won’t do that,” he replied. 
“Besides, Percy wouldn’t like it. He’s one of the 
best of fellows,” he added. 

Percy meantime had walked back along Picca- 
dilly to St. James’ Street. He felt as if he had been 
through some dreaded ordeal, which had turned out 
not to be an ordeal at all. Now that he had seen 
Sybil again, he discovered that what he had been 
dreading, what had made himself shun the world, 
was, in large measure, the fear of being brought, 
however indirectly, into contact with her, either by 
the sight of her, or even by the most distant allu- 
sion to her. But the moment he saw her, he felt 
only intense curiosity to see how they would behave 
to each other. He had thought their meeting 
would be like the handling of an unhealed wound ; 
and now for the first time when the old wound had 
been touched, did he know that it was raw no 
longer, but healthy normal flesh. In some subtle 
way, too, the sight of her had waked him up amaz- 
ingly. Her incomparable beauty, which he felt he 
had never appreciated till now, and his absolute 
indifference to it except as beauty, was at the same 
time a stimulus and a consolation. He had lain in 


234 The Money Market. 

bed, as it were, for these months, and now that he 
got up he found he was well. Once again the mys- 
tery and attraction of crowds asserted itself, and he 
strolled slowly along drinking in the streets like a 
thirsty man. 

It was a fine night and warm for winter, and the 
pavements were full of the indescribable froth of 
the London streets. Newspaper boys were shout- 
ing the horrible and revolting details of an East-end 
murder and the birth of a Royal Prince, all in one 
breath ; the lounger of the streets stared at every 
face that passed him; under the gas lamps of Bur- 
lington House stood two Members of Parliament and 
a Cabinet Minister, who looked like a butler out of 
place, conversing earnestly ; gaudy, faded-looking 
women made eyes at the passers-by ; an elderly 
clergyman fled past Percy with horror written on 
every line of his face, as if he had unexpectedly 
found that the world was disconcertingly wicked ; 
a policeman stood in mid-street in the stress of a 
roaring spat of admirable law-abiding omnibuses 
and hansoms, and stopped this flood and let out 
that with a wave of the hand, like a lock-master, or 
like a conductor controlling an intelligent orchestra; 
a dog, carrying on its neck a box for the alms of 
those charitably inclined towards the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Children, trotted amiably along smiling 
and smelling at interesting corners, and a particu- 
larly seedy-looking individual sold copper-plated 
collar-studs at three a penny. 


235 


The Money Market . 

Percy could have laughed aloud at finding him- 
self able again to take joy in the inimitable bustle ; 
he crossed the road for the pleasure of recrossing it ; 
and when he reached St. James’ Street, instead of 
turning down it, in the direction of his home, he 
continued his walk along Piccadilly towards the 
Park. As he passed the Berkeley Hotel, the doors 
were thrown open, and five or six people, three of 
them women in evening dress, came across the pave- 
ment towards a couple of carriages which were 
waiting, going home no doubt after dinner. In a 
moment Percy recognized one of them. 

“ Oh, Blanche,” he cried to her, shaking her by 
both hands, “I have just found that I am alive 
again, and it is good to be alive. I have walked 
along a real street, and it is full of real people. Bet 
me come to lunch to-morrow.” 

u I congratulate you, Percy,” she said. “ Yes, do 
come, unless you’ve forgotten the way.” 

“I had forgotten it,” he said, “but I remember 
it now.” 

She gave him a quick pleased nod, and got into 
the brougham where her father and mother were 
waiting for her. 

Percy turned and went home. It was still only 
half-past ten, and on the table lay a book with some 
engravings after Claude in it, which he had been 
reading that afternoon. Three hours ago he had 
found it so absorbing that in reading it he had left 
himself only ten minutes for dinner before the 


236 The Money Market . 

concert. But now he looked at it doubtfully a 
moment, sat down with an effort, and read a page. 
As he turned over it struck him that he had not an 
idea of what he had been reading, and he applied 
himself again to it. But the second attempt was 
no better than the first, and he shut it up and went 
to the window. The blinds had not been drawn, 
and he stood there some little while looking out. 
The long lines of lighted gas led down the hill in 
sharp perspective to St. James’s Palace, and the 
illuminated clock-face shone out through the thick 
air like a large moon behind mist. Streams of that 
inimitable invention, the human race, passed and 
repassed, and Percy found himself gazing with an 
intentness and interest that the admirable work on 
Claude could not rouse in him. At last he turned. 

“Thank God for this world,” he said. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

The Resurrection. 

PERCY woke next morning slowly and luxuriously, 
with a sense of interest in the day which increased 
as his sleep evaporated off him. During the last 
few months the thoughts of the gems he would ex- 
amine that day, and the pictures he would look at, 
had never showed themselves rose-coloured at wak- 
ing. Though he had been able to interest himself, 
as it seemed to him at the time, passionately, when 
he was at work, the waking thought that there 
would be auother day, which both before he met 
Sybil and up to the day of the catastrophe had been 
habitually rapturous, had turned cold and dead, as 
unluminous as the East at sunset. The joy of mere 
life, the simple elemental pleasures of existence, — 
like bathing when one was hot, eating when one 
was hungry, — had deserted him. But this morning 
they seemed to be with him again, and consequently, 
since the joy of lying in bed is known only to the 
happy, he lay with his hands clasped behind his 
head, staring at the ceiling, counting the number 
of sprigs of fern on aline of his bedroom paper, and 
getting confused about half-way across the room ; 
wondering what the time was, and forbearing to 
look at liis watch which ticked close to liis elbow. 


238 


The Money Market . 

He even tried to persuade himself that he had not 
been called, and thought it quite possible that his 
clothes, which had been arranged on a chair near 
his bed, had been put there overnight by his valet. 

A little gentle tap came at the door, and Percy, 
knowing who it was, shut his eyes again and pre- 
tended to be asleep. He heard Blessington come 
on tiptoe round the screen by the head of the bed, 
then very quietly she went across to the window 
and drew down the blind again to shut out the blink 
of yellow daylight which filtered through the panes. 
Percy opened his eyes. 

“Eh, it would be a pity to wake him,” he said, 
imitating Blessington’s voice to perfection. 

Blessington had the faculty of adoration, which is 
rare in these days, and she exercised it exclusively 
on Percy. 

“ I thought you wouldn’t get up yet,” she said. 
“Shall I tell Clarke to bring you your breakfast in 
bed?” 

“What time is it?” he asked. 

“ Half-past nine,” said Blessington, “by me. But 
I’m a little slow.” 

Percy groaned. 

“ I’ve only slept nine hours,” he said hopelessly. 
“ Isn’t it terrible for me? It was hardly worth while 
going to bed.” 

“Well then, shall I tell Clarke to light you a bit 
of fire for you to dress by ?” asked she ; “or I’ll do 
it myself in a minute.” 


The Money Market . 


239 


“Not even that, Blessington,” he said. “Oh, 
I am happy this morning!” 

Blessington looked at him a moment with dim 
eyes. 

‘ ‘ Bless you, dear, ’ ’ she said, and left the room. 

Percy got lazily out of bed, and went into his 
bathroom next door. There was a big marble 
tank sunk in the floor, and stripping off his night- 
shirt he took a long breath and plunged in, head 
under water. How pleasant the sting of the cold 
water was, and how soul-satisfying the glow of the 
skin that his rough towel gave! The tiles of the 
bathroom were cold to the feet, and he went back to 
his bedroom with his hair dripping and uncombed 
from the water and finished his drying there, stand- 
ing on the thick Persian rug by his bed. Every- 
thing went right that morning : his razor was 
sharp, his soap showed a positive propensity to 
lather, he did not drop his toothbrush into the 
water in which he had washed his hands, and it 
seemed that unseen hands managed the buttoning 
of studs and braces, and the lacing of his boots. 
Above all, there was another day, whole batches of 
minutes, almost innumerable. 

The morning passed before he w^as aware that 
he had finished breakfast. It is true that he rode 
for an hour or so on his bicycle, that he called at 
several shops, wrote a couple of letters at the 
Bachelors’ Club, and read the advertisements in 
the Daily Telegraph; but before he had realised 


240 


The Money Market . 

that the hours were on the move, he was already 
late for lunch at the Stoakleys’, where Lady 
Stoakley and Blanche, who were alone, had begun 
without him. 

“I have no excuse of any kind,” he said as he 
entered the room, “and it is delightful to see you 
again, Lady Stoakley. It was the luckiest chance 
that I happened to pass the Berkeley so simul- 
taneously — you see what I mean. Anyhow, here 
I am : I have seen nobody for several months, and 
it won’t do ; here and now I renounce the error of 
my ways.” 

He looked round with beaming frankness. 

“Oh, I was wrong, I know,” he said, “but how 
is one to learn wisdom except by the assiduous 
and constant practise of folly? I like profiting 
by my own mistakes, not by the mistakes of other 
people. But one has to pay a huge price for a 
little wisdom. Yet it is better than learning wis- 
dom on the cheap. Yes, last night only I abandoned 
the hermitage, and the brotherhood of one is broken 
up. I went to a concert — why should I not tell 
you? — and I sat next to Sybil. I never saw her so 
incomparably beautiful, and I drank her beauty in 
till I was in love with life again. At least that is 
one explanation ; of course there are plenty of 
others. Also, I heard from Carnegie that she was 
to marry him after Easter, and I swear that I con- 
gratulated them both with absolute sincerity.” 

It was hard to reply to such surprisingly frank 


The Money Market . 241 

statements, and Percy went on, after eating a 
quantity of frills and chopped carrots : 

“ I suppose I should be called ‘a cure’ if I went 
to see a doctor,” he said. “Are these remarks in 
bad taste? I rather think they are, but I can’t trou- 
ble to think of matters of taste to-day. Taste is 
only a veneer, a superficial sort of varnish ; I hate 
taste ! ’ ’ 

Blanche laughed. 

“Oh, Percy,” she cried, “were you ever accused 
of being consistent? How often, with a very 
solemn face, have you told me that taste is the only 
thing in the world ? ” 

“Consistent? Who wants to be consistent?” 
he said. “ I couldn’t be consistent if I tried, so it 
is lucky I don’t want to. Only, I am alive again. 
Being alive really is exceedingly different to being 
dead. It sounds simple, doesn’t it ; but that is the 
sum of the wisdom I have learned in these last 
months. The point is, that I have learned it. Yes, 
some more chicken, please.” 

Percy stayed an unconscionable time after lunch, 
and talked a great deal. L,ady Stoakley had to go 
out at three, and she left the two together in her 
room, Percy smoking cigarettes, and both of them 
talking at once, neither pretending for a moment to 
be listening to what the other was saying. Percy 
had large arrears of unspoken criticisms to make on 
every branch of art under the sun ; but after either 
condemning wholesale a hundred artists whom 
1G 


242 


The Money Mci7 r ket. 

Blanche had always supposed to be the most notable 
of all time, or insisting that a hundred others of 
whom she had never heard were each of them the 
only man on the earth who had ever been endowed 
with a spark of the divine fire, he spoke of more 
personal matters, and to his dissertation on these 
subjects Blanche listened without interrupting or 
contradicting. 

“I met her last night, as I told you,” he said, 
u and it was revealed to me in a flash that the whole 
past was irrevocably over. I had suspected before 
that my love was dead, at that moment I knew it. 
Dead, dead, and buried clean out of sight. Yet I 
was in earnest. Six months ago Sybil was the 
whole world to me. Now, nothing whatever, only 
a most beautiful woman. Do you know, Blanche, 
what happened on that last morning at Abbots- 
worthy ? ’ ’ 

“Vaguely only. Tell me.” 

“Well, I told L,ady Otterbourne and Sybil that I 
felt I could not touch the money my grandfather 
had made by money-lending. Do you not under- 
stand the feeling? Then I had an interview with 
Dady Otterbourne alone, who told me pretty plainly 
that Sybil could not marry a poor man. I am glad 
to say that I told her I did not believe her, that 
Sybil would decide for herself ; and when I went to 
ask Sybil immediately afterwards, I was not fright- 
ened or in doubt at all. I never dreamed — well, 
that my money was so much more important 


243 


The Money Market . 

than I. Oh, it was very salutary ! The odd thing 
is that I wasn’t angry. It was such a tremendous 
surprise.” 

“And she, Sybil?” 

“ She agreed with her mother,” remarked Percy, 
‘‘wholly and entirely.” 

Blanche held out her hand. 

“Poor dear Percy,” she said, “you don’t know 
how sorry I was for you, but I did not think you 
wanted to see anyone. That was why I did not 
come. I had a great belief in your sanity, and I 
was not the least afraid of your growing bitter or 
blowing out your brains. When people are work- 
ing out their own salvation it is always well to leave 
them alone. But I wrote to you.” 

“ Yes, I remember,” said he. “ I have got the 
letter still.” 

“I want to ask you one thing,” said Blanche. 
“ If before you had absolutely decided to throw up 
the money you had known that Sybil would act as 
she did, would you have done it?” 

Percy considered a moment. 

“I find it hard to say,” he replied. “You see 
it was really no case of decision at all with me. 
Nothing else for a moment seemed to me possible. 
On the other hand, what Sybil did never seemed to 
me possible. So really I hardly know. But I think 
that I should not have acted differently, just because 
I could not. But even if there had been a decision, 
if I had realised then that Sybil’s affection for me 


244 


The Money Market. 

was dependent on pounds sterling, I should not 
have wished for it on such terms.” 

“Yet you loved her?” 

“I know I did,” said he, “but — but — oh, do you 
not understand ? ’ ’ 

There was silence and soon Percy rose. 

u I must go,” he said ; “ but may I come back?” 

“Surely,” said she, smiling at him. 

“And may I come back often, Blanche?” he 
asked. 

She laughed. 

“ Yes, if you will go away now,” she said. 

Fellowes dined with Percy that night, and came 
prepared to find a haggard student of obscure artists 
to entertain him with abstruse information. His 
host was not down when he arrived ; but as he 
waited for him, his very acute and observant eye 
detected, so it thought, a subtle change which had 
passed over the rcom since he had seen it last. At 
first he could not say exactly what it was, for on 
first view it was as undefinable as the bounding 
line which separates winter from spring, but the 
details which made up the impression slowly de- 
tached themselves from the vagueness and became 
outlined. Percy’s armchair, for instance, was drawn 
up to the fire in a position as if it had been lately 
used, while the table where he worked had the air 
of a house with the blinds drawn down, in the 
absence of the family. Near the armchair on the 
floor lay a book open on the carpet, and Fellowes, 


245 


The Money Market . 

picking it up, observed that it was a copy of Gerald 
Eversley's Friendship , which Percy had covered 
with pictures illustrative of that remarkable text. 
Several cigarette ends lay in the fender, and several 
little streaks of ash on the hearth-rug, and Fellowes 
made the admirable deduction that Percy had been 
smoking cigarettes and reading Gerald Eversley^s 
Friendship . This betokened either very low spirits 
or exceedingly cheerful ones. He turned over the 
leaves of the book to see if there were any further 
indications, and finding a new illustration of Ford 
Venniker, that amazing nobleman, in a frock-coat 
and a bowler hat at Harrow Station, he decided 
that Percy was in cheerful spirits. No large books 
on gems or other branches of art strewed the tables, 
all were in their shelves ; and on the piano there 
stood open no example of what Fellowes called the 
explosive method, which meant one large chord 
like a bombshell followed by a mUe'e of small black 
ones, but the dance music out of Henry VIIL And 
as he heard Percy’s foot upon the threshold of the 
open door : 

“ Enter the amateur !” he cried. 

Percy ran at him across the room, and Fellowes 
dodged behind the table. 

“The devoted slave of the divine mistress Art 
never rages,” he observed with emphasis. 

Percy said something which sounded like “ Con- 
found the divine mistress,” but his words were 
drowned in a sudden rush he made round the cor- 


246 


The Money Market . 

ner of tlie table, upsetting it and bringing it to the 
ground with a frightful crash. 

He gazed upon the ruin with perfect equanimity. 

“ Say you saw Percy in the ruins of — No. 9 St. 
James’ Street,” he observed fatuously. “Come to 
dinner, Ernest.” 

The two went through the folding-doors into 
the dining-room, took their seats, and ate soup in 
silence. Percy drummed on the table with his 
fingers, and then suddenly laughed. 

“Kindly explain,” said Ernest. 

“I will after dinner. Oh, I’ve drawn a new 
picture of Lord Venuiker! It is in the grand 
style.” 

“ I saw it. It seems to me to have the note of 
nobility,” observed Ernest. 

“ Glad you think so. I am no. sure, Dut I think 
I must get the book interleaved. I have several 
more drawings in my head.” 

“ I expected something of this sort,” said Ernest. 

“Why?” 

Well, I looked round the room before you came 
down. I found cigarette ash on the hearth-rug, 
and Gerald Eversley. Also your armchair drawn 
up to the fire. There was the Henry VIII. music 
on the piano, and the works dealing with the Di- 
vine Mistress neatly in their shelves. I saw ” 

“ My name is Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street,” 
interrupted Percy. 

u Quite right. How did you guess? ” 


247 


The Money Market . 

“ It was an induction, not a guess,” said Percy. 
“ Have some more fish ? No ? Then I will. Yes, 
I’ve passed a very remarkable twenty-four hours, 
or, to be exa^t, twenty-three. ’ ’ 

“ Don’t tell me. I want to make a shot.” 

“Well?” Percy looked round, but his servant 
was out of the room. 

“You have heard certain news about a person in 
whom you were once very much interested.” 

Percy shook his head. 

“That is ingenious,” he said, “and true. But 
that was not the first cause of it. But probably that 
had something to do with it.” 

“ There is nothing like cold water to wake one 
up,” said Ernest, “that and a slap in the face.” 

“Ah, the slap in the face didn’t answer with 
me,” said Percy. “I’m really afraid, Ernest, that 
I must have been precious near becoming cynical 
or misanthropic, or something silly of that kind.” 

“ I never thought you would keep it up,” said 
Ernest. 

“But I was serious,” said Percy. “I was per- 
fectly serious.” 

“ I didn’t think you were posing.” 

“ That was exceedingly kind of you. The cigar- 
ettes are by you. Shall we sit here or go into the 
other room? At ten, by the way, we are going to 
see the Tramp Bicyclist at the Empire. I love the 
Empire. It combines amusement with instruction, 
and is funny without being prudish.” 


248 


The Money Market . 

“ That sounds all right. I was afraid you were 
going to take me to hear Wagner, or something 
very classical and tedious.” 

“ No, the Wagner concert was last night. Let’s 
sit here. It all happened at the Wagner concert.” 

“ All what? ” 

“All my little transformation,” said Percy. “A 
match, please. Thanks. It is a very short story. 
I went into my place like a crab, all sideways, as 
one does when one is late, past an interminable row 
of indignant and apparently huge people, and found 
myself in a stall next Sybil.” 

“ That is good,” said Ernest; “the British public 
appreciates that sort of thing. Well ? ” 

“ Yes, it would make quite a good scene in one 
of your rotten little stories, if you had any sense of 
style. It is odd to me, considering how much you 
write, how badly you do it. On the other side of 
Sybil was Carnegie, looking very cool and gentle- 
manly. For a moment I thought of bolting ; but I 
stopped, because I was so frightfully interested to 
know what she and I would do. At the moment I 
could not guess. And then I made the grand dis- 
covery.” 

“What was that? ” 

“That she was more beautiful than the morning, 
and that I did not love her. Then came in the 
second factor at which you made such an ingenious 
and correct guess. What an exquisite pleasure 
each of these discoveries was ! In the interval Car- 


The Money Market 249 

negie and I smoked a cigarette together and he told 
me the marriage would come off after Easter. We 
went back, and I congratulated Sybil with all my 
heart. I am glad to have known a girl as beautiful 
as that. I also told her she might keep — no, I 
won’t tell you that. But there is the history of it. 
The change was made. I went out and literally 
danced down Piccadilly. Opposite the Berkeley I 
saw Blanche.” 

“ Did you dance with her? ” 

“No, but I lunched with her to-day.” 

Ernest was silent a moment. 

“Did it ever occur to you that you were a pro- 
found egoist ?” he asked at length. 

“Never. How could it? The egoist never 
thinks of himself as egoistical. Of course I am an 
egoist : that is no discovery. But to do myself 
justice, I am quite as interested in other people as I 
am in myself, though how they strike me is what 
matters. The critic always sees things as they 
strike himself, never as in themselves they really 
are, as that curious school-inspector said. But there 
is one point which is so odd.” 

“Is it about yourself or other people? ” 

“Oh, myself, of course. Don’t interrupt. To 
think that last September only I was simply head- 
over-ears in love with Sybil, and now, only four 
months later, I am master of myself again.’ ’ 

“You have got over it, that is all,” said 
Ernest. “What a great many words an egoist 


250 The Money Market . 

seems to want in order to express a very simple 
tiling.” 

“ Yes, but how quickly, how thoroughly I have 
got over it ! She is to me a beautiful woman, that 
is all.” 

Ernest turned his chair round to the fire, and 
flicked his cigarette ash into the grate. 

“ I don’t see what the actual lapse of time has to 
do with getting over a thing,” he said. u If one 
gets over a thing quickly, one is called either in- 
sincere or shallow. That is libellous. The people 
who continue mourning and regretting a thing are 
either idle people who are too lazy to control their 
minds and emotions, or undervitalised people who 
have no rebound in them. Supposing I lost six- 
pence, and was shut up in a tower to think over 
my loss without books to read or people to talk to, 
I should go on thinking about that sixpence for 
years.” 

Percy laughed. 

“That is a good explanation,” he said. “I, as 
you know, instantly, or rather after a week of work, 
plunged into Art. I take off my hat to Art. I am 
very grateful to her. She consoled me excellently, 
and kept me from going sour. For weeks I thought 
of nothing else. Then that incident happened last 
night, and I find I am alive again.” 

“And had lunch with Blanche Stoakley to-day,” 
observed Ernest. 

“Yes, and am going to see the Tramp Bicyclist 


251 


The Money Market . 

to-night,” said Percy, jumping up. “We’ll walk ; 
the streets are so jolly. Ernest,” and he took him 
by the arm, “ they are full of men and women, and 
all these months I have never remembered that.” 

The sight of Percy had been extraordinarily 
pleasant to Blanche, and his abandonment of 
his absurd hermit’s life not less so. That the 
sight of him was also strangely exciting to her, 
she would not admit to herself, though it was 
quite indubitably true. Frankly she had been dis- 
appointed in him in the autumn; she had hoped 
and believed he would have conducted himself more 
successfully. Anyone, she told herself, could go 
and shut himself up and see none of his friends. 
Percy ought to have taken a finer and, she added, 
a more characteristic line. No doubt the sudden- 
ness of the blow had staggered him ; it was natural 
that his world should seem boulverse , but it was 
a confession of incompetence to make a hermit of 
himself True, as everyone said, and as he himself 
had told her, he had buried himself in work, — he 
had made one passion take the place of another, — 
but in order to study Art there was no reason why 
you should give a shut door to your best friends. 
Blanche confessed that she could not suggest a line 
that should be striking, but she held an extremely 
high opinion of Percy’s possibilities, and in this he 
had acted below his best. 

Anyhow, the treatment had succeeded. There 
was no denying that to day he had been quite com- 


252 


The Money Market . 

pletely himself again. L,ike Fellowes, she did not 
think it argued either shallowness of nature, nor 
shallowness in his love of Sybil, that in so few 
months he had buried the past. Had he been less 
successful, had he become melancholy, bitter, ready 
to say his life was spoiled, she would have given 
him the sympathy that all true women feel for 
what is weak and inferior ; but she would in no 
way have considered that such signs indicated faith- 
fulness, or strength of affection. She, too, would 
have put them down to a lack of other interests, 
and a feeble vitality. Six months ago, when she 
had communed with herself alone, and confessed 
that Percy was more to her than other men, she 
too had a struggle ; but she had conquered her 
momentary distaste of things. The thing could 
not be. Very good ; there was no more to be said, 
but thank Heaven there were still plenty more 
things to be done. 

u Faithfulness,” she had said once, long ago, to 
Percy, u as so many people understand it, is a sign 
of weakness, not of strength. People seem to think 
it becoming to put their minds and emotions into 
crape for years ; and grief, quite genuine grief, often 
has the awful effect of making so many people pose. 
They cut their mourning by the most fashionable 
patterns ; and, if one believes, as I most certainly 
do, that a bereavement is not sent one altogether 
blindly, but with design and purpose, it is an insult 
to the Power that sends it to behave as if the object 


The Money Market. 253 

of it could possibly have been to cripple your affec- 
tions and thwart your energies.” 

To a certain extent, Percy had succumbed, had 
confessed himself beaten. He had cut himself off 
from the living, breathing world, which is not less 
essential to the life of a man than his heart or his 
lungs. But that was over, and he had come back ; 
lie had ceased to be insane, he held up his head 
again. Also, she recollected (and suddenly put the 
stopper on her recollections) he was free. 

Sybil had told Lady Otterbourne about her meet- 
ing with Percy the evening before, and about his 
renewed gift of the pearls to her, at which her 
mother came near to feeling a sense of shame. His 
generosity to them both had had something splen- 
did about it, and she knew with annoying vivid- 
ness how incredibly mean Sybil must have seemed 
to him. Sybil as a matter of fact had consulted 
her about the returning of the pearls immediately 
after the breaking off of the match, and Lady Ot- 
terbourne had advised her to keep them till he 
sent for them. 

“ You cannot send fifty thousand pounds worth 
of jewels through the penny post,” she had said, 
“Percy will certainly send for them and you had 
better keep them till he does. They must, of 
course, be delivered to his representative.” 

This had happened in September; but as the 
days went on, and still Percy did not send for the 
pearls, Lady Otterbourne began to wonder whether 


254 


The Money Market . 

he ever would. To say that she contemplated a 
theft would be grossly overstating the thing ; but 
it more than once struck her that pearls always 
suited Sybil very well. Percy, it was to be sup- 
posed, was broken-hearted : at any rate, he had 
shut himself up and would not see his friends, and 
L,ady Otterbourne compounded with her conscience 
over the delay by saying that it would not be deli- 
cate to intrude on his grief. She meant — yes, she 
quite distinctly meant to send the pearls back to 
him sometime soon, but where was the hurry ? 

Sybil was engaged to Arthur Carnegie soon after 
Christmas, and the engagement was made public 
early in January. The pearls had been in L,ady 
Otterbourne’s own jewel safe all the autumn, and 
Sybil had not worn them ; indeed, it was only a 
couple of nights before her meeting with Percy at 
the Wagner concert that her mother had come into 
her room as she was dressing for dinner with the 
case in her hand. 

“I thought you might like to wear the pearls 
just once or twice,” she said. “Of course, Percy 
will soon send for them. He will send for them 
as soon as he hears of your marriage, I daresay. 
Wear them to-night, Sybil. How magnificent 
they are ! ” 

Sybil looked at them. 

“ Yes, they are wonderful,” she said. “ Mother, 
do you think Percy means me to keep them ? He 
surely would have sent for them by now, would he 


The Money Market . 255 

not? I remember his giving me them so well. 
‘ They are your own, your very own,’ he said.” 

“Wear them to-night, anyhow,” said L,ady 
Otterbourne. 

“Would not Arthur think it strange?” she 
asked. “Might he not ask how I got them? 
That would not be pleasant.” 

“My dear, Arthur never asks such questions. 
Probably he will not notice them. Men don’t see 
pearls.” 

But when Sybil told Tady Otterbourne this 
morning about what Percy had said to her, she 
felt almost ashamed. 

“ He really is very generous,” she said. “ How 
did he look, Sybil ? Did he look much changed?” 

“No, I don’t think he did,” said Sybil. “Oh, 
mother, do you think I treated him very badly ? ’ ’ 

“ It is too late to think of that, Sybil,” said her 
mother. “What is done, is done. He was obsti- 
nate ; he persisted in doing a mad, absurd thing. 
Think of that ; perhaps that may be some comfort 
to you.” 

“Comfort? Why should I want comfort?” 
demanded Sybil, with the foxy look in her face. 

“ You asked if I thought you had treated him 
badly. I supposed you felt ashamed. I cannot 
say that I think you treated him well.” 

Sybil flushed. 

“You would not have allowed me to marry 
him,” she said hotly. “ I knew it was impossible.” 


256 


The Money Market . 

“ Yes, but you saved me the trouble of not 
allowing you,” said Lady Otterbourne, very calmly. 
“Surely you and I can deal frankly with each 
other. There is not a pin to choose between us. 
You had no intention of marrying him, when he 
insisted on giving up the money. I did not say a 
word to dissuade you.” 

“ You entirely approved what I did.” 

“Entirely. I never denied it. Besides, one 
does not adopt an approving or a disapproving 
attitude to what is necessary. Do not let us dis- 
cuss the matter, Sybil. There is no earthly object 
gained by irritating ourselves and each other. 
Percy has behaved most generously. You and I 
have not. Let us admit it and forget it. By the 
way, it would be well to have the pearls insured at 
once. We ought to have had it done long ago, but 
one expected from day to day that Percy would 
send for them. Perhaps he has had them insured 
already. No doubt he will let you know where 
they are insured, if so.” 

Sybil did not think it necessary to enlighten her 
mother as to Carnegie’s view of her acceptance of 
the gift, aud the two parted with a slight but not 
uncommon feeling of resentment on each side — 
Sybil feeling injured by her mother’s frankness, 
which she thought brutal ; Lady Otterbourne by 
Sybil’s little attempts to gloss things over, which 
she considered futile and nonsensical. 


CHAPTER XVIIL 
The Song of Songs* 

Sybil’s marriage was celebrated on the Tuesday- 
after Easter, and was a very magnificent affair. 
The settlements which Mr. Carnegie made on his 
bride were immense ; and it was said, definitely, that 
he intended to settle down in England. Also, it 
was commonly reported that Lady Otterbourne pro- 
fessed herself to be satisfied; and that was thought 
to be saying a great deal. Among other jewels, the 
bride wore a magnificent necklace of three rows of 
pearls, which were not mentioned as being the gift 
of the bridegroom, and which, in consequence, were 
generally supposed by the amiably inclined to be 
u Roman. ” 

Percy had been asked to the wedding, a fact much 
commented on. His own comment, however, was 
the most interesting. He read the card with a face 
of blank surprise, and then laughed for five minutes. 
But he had gone down to spend a week with Mrs. 
Montgomery, at her house near Goring, where he 
had stayed once before in the early autumn, and he 
did not propose to go up with her to the ceremony. 

Mrs. Montgomery was rather disappointed. She 
had thought to herself how extremely dramatic it 
would be if Percy was to appear at the wedding 
17 257 


258 


The Money Market . 

polite and radiant and normal. She was always 
wanting her friends to put themselves into dramatic 
situations for her amusement, and she considered it 
selfish if they did not. She and Percy were old 
friends, and she stated her view very clearly to him. 

“ It would be very striking if you came, Percy,” 
she said ; “ and it is most disappointing of you not 
to. What reason can you have ? You have quite 
got over it, and you ought to show the world that 
you have. Why don’t you come ? ” 

Percy sat up with a twinkle in his eye. 

“ I might be a professional beauty ” he said, “ and 
you a rising photographer. You are always want- 
ing to pose one. ’ ’ 

M Don’t be rude ; it doesn’t suit you. Why don’t 
you come ? ” 

“ I hate traveling on Bank Holiday, ” said Percy 
feebly. 

“Tuesday after Easter is not Bank Holiday,” 
said Mrs. Montgomery rather triumphantly. “ The 
Monday is.” 

“ Oh, but it’s Eeap Year,” said Percy, “ and that 
throws Bank Holiday one day further on.” 

“Well, if you won’t come, you won’t” said she. 
“ And you’ll have to entertain the Stoakleys if they 
get here before I am back. There are some people,” 
she continued meditatively, “who always get every- 
where rather before the time they are expected.” 

“Then I’ll expect them to lunch,” said Percy. 

“ If so, they will be here by one.” 


259 


The Money Market . 

“I know what you mean,” said he, “but I don’t 
think it is characteristic of the Stoakleys — of which 
of them, for instance ? ” 

“Of Blanche, certainly,” said Mrs. Montgomery, 
“ though she only does so mentally. She always is 
rather quicker than one expects. She is so pretty 
that one expects her to be stupid, which she is not. ” 

“No, she certainly is not stupid.” 

Mrs. Montgomery paused. Perhaps Percy was 
not going to disappoint her after all. The profes- 
sional beauty was posing of its own accord. 

“ I wish you liked her a little more,” she said at 
length. 

“Why?” 

“ Because you might marry her, perhaps.” 

Percy shut his book — it was not on the subject of 
Art — with a bang. 

“Don’t you think I like her enough for that?” 
he asked. 

“ Really, Percy, how you startle me. I hate the 
young generation. They are always chucking sur- 
prises about like schoolboys snowballing. How 
much you like her is a matter for yourself to 
decide. ’ ’ 

“ I decided long ago. It was a good thing I didn’t 
tell you, as you so dislike surprises.” 

“Do you mean you are going to propose to 
her ? ’’ 

Percy looked at her with most irritating deliber- 
ation. 


260 


The Money Market . 

‘ 1 1 think you ask more questions than any one I 
ever saw,” he said. 

“ I certainly receive fewer answers from you 
than from anyone I ever saw, ” retorted Mrs. Mont- 
gomery. u But I am delighted. Oh ! I see, that is 
the reason why you will not come to the wedding. 
Pray accept a blessing, as Miss Flite said.” 

“It was very kind of Miss Flite,” said Percy 
lazily. 

“ It was more than you deserved,” said she. “But 
I forgive you. She and her mother are both coming ; 
he is not. What do you suppose Lady Stoakley 
will say to it ? ” 

“Will say to what? ” asked Percy, composedly. 

“ To your proposing to Blanche. How tiresome 
you are.” 

“ I don’t know. I haven’t asked her.” 

1 1 Doesn’t it interest you ? ” 

“ Immensely. But I give you warning ; I am 
not going to answer any more questions.” 

“ That will be very rude of you, then.” 

Percy laughed. 

“I like being rude to you, Mrs. Montgomery,” 
he said, “ because I like to see how very little effect 
it has on you. You certainly belong to the Pachy- 
derms.” 

“Who are the Pachyderms?” asked Mrs. Mont- 
gomery with dignity. 

“ They are a very old family,” said Percy, “and 
they have a tendency toward exploration, being im- 


The Money Market . 


261 


pervious to cold. Hurrah ! here is tea. Do give 
me some tea quickly, because I’m going to fish 
afterwards till it gets dark.” 

During the weeks that had passed since January, 
Percy and Blanche had seen a great deal of each 
other. They had both the enviable faculty of pick- 
ing up friendships exactly where they had left off, 
and neither had wasted any time about feeling 
their way back to their old intimacy. Blanche was 
a confirmed Wagnerite, and the two used to scour 
Don do n together for concerts. But by degrees a 
new complexion came over their friendship, though 
it did not blunt the camaraderie which had so long 
subsisted between them. There began to form in 
Percy’s mind another image which occupied the 
niche from which Sybil’s had vanished so suddenly, 
and day by day he chiselled at it till it stood com- 
plete. It only remained to fall down and wor- 
ship it. 

The Stoakleys arrived about tea-time next day, 
neither later nor earlier than it was reasonable to 
expect them. It was a delicious spring evening, 
with a soft caressing air, and the inimitable sense 
of budding and growing things. Hawthorn and 
limes were already in leaf, and the other trees were 
hastening after them. It seemed that the aspect 
of the world grew more green every hour, that if 
one put one’s ear to a tree-trunk one might hear 
the rush of the sap in the tingling boughs. 

Dady Stoakley went to her room after tea, leav- 


262 


The Money Market . 

in g the others still out on the lawn. At Blanche’s 
suggestion they wandered down to the riverside, 
and walked through the meadows thickly starred 
with daisies and buttercups. The sun was near to 
its setting, and had fired the thin clouds in the West 
with living rose. Thrushes threw their song abroad 
into the air with all the lavishness of mating time. 
Leaves lisped in the cool shadow of trees, and the 
grasses were long round the strolling feet. The 
willows by the water were enmeshed in a green net 
of leaves, and the beautiful river swung on its way 
in great sheets of mirrored sky. They had passed 
through the lawn and over the nearer fields in busy 
talk ; but here a silence fell. 

“All, it is spring!” said Percy, at length. 
“Spring, and the promise of all good things. I 
read the Song of Solomon last night, Blanche. Do 
you know it? ‘ For lo, the winter is past, the rain 
is over and gone ; the flowers appear on the earth ; 
the time of the singing birds is come . 9 They are 
singing ; they are singing in my heart. ” 

Percy paused. 

“ It has rung in my head all day, ” he said ; “it 
seems to have been written for me. May I go on, 
Blanche?” 

Blanche raised her eyes to his, but did not speak. 

“‘The fig tree putteth forth her green figs,’” 
said Percy very low, “ ‘ and the vines with the 
tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, 
my fair one, and come away . 9 99 


The Money Market . 263 

For a long moment they stood there silent ; then 
Percy gently drew Blanche towards him, and kissed 
her. 

“ * My beloved is mine, ’ ” she whispered, “ ( and 
I am his. ’ ’ * 


» 


THE LAUREL WALK, 

A NOVEL, 

By MRS. MOLESWORTH, 

Author of “CARROTS,” “MEG LANGHOLME,” etc. 

Cloth and Gold, 16mo., 454 pp. Price, $1.50. 

“ No holiday season would be complete for a host of young readers without a 
volume from the hand of Mrs. Molesworth . . . It is one of the peculiarities 
of Mrs. Molesworth’s stories that older readers can no more escape their charm 
than younger ones.”— Christian Union. 

“Her name upon the title page of a book is sufficient guarantee of its 
worthiness to be placed in the hands of the girls of the family .”— Boston 
Home Journal. 

“ Mrs. Molesworth stands unrivalled as a writer for young girls.”— Cleveland 
Critic. 


PAYING THE WAY, 

A STIRRING ROMANCE OF AUSTRALIAN LIFE, 

By SIMPSON NEWLAND, 

Ex- Treasurer of South Australia. 

WITH 

25 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 

BY HERBERT COLE, THE FAMOUS ENGLISH ARTIST. 

Crown, 8vo., Cloth, Gilt, 376 pp. Price, $1.50. 

At this time, when the scientific world of Europe is agog over the 
discoveries of M. Louis deRougemont, the French “Robinson 
Crusoe,” who has just returned to civilization after more than a score 
of years of adventure among the savage tribes of the Australian 
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literary and scientific world the work of Mr. Simpson Newland, 
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described by M. Louis de Rougemont in the account he gives of his 
adventures. 

The foregoing novels are just published, and will be followed at brief intervals, 
by others, by the world’s leading writers of fiction. 


The next volume of the Novel series is to appear directly; it will be, 

GILES INGILBY, 

A ROMANCE, 

By W. E. NORRIS, 

Author of “ The Dancer In Yellow,” “ The Fightforthe Crown,” “ Clarissa Furiosa,” etc. 
Cloth and Gold, 16mo. Price, 81.50. 


Drexel Biddle > Philadelphia, 


i 


A DUEL WITH DESTINY 

AND 

OTHER STORIES, 

By EDITH TOWNSEND EVERETT. 

Cloth, Gilt top, 12mo., Illustrated, 184 pp. Price, 75 cents. 

“This is a charming group of stories, wide in scope and remarkable for sus- 
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THE REVENGE OF LUCAS HELM, 

By AUGUSTE BLONDEL. 

Translated from the French. 

Cloth, Gilt top, 12mo., Illustrated, 100 pp. Price. 50 cents. 

“ One of those rare tales which few beside French writers can make seem 
plausible through the charm of the telling, as against the fantasy of the tale. 
It appeared first in the ‘ Revue des Deux Mondes,’ and translated into Eng- 
lish has added one more to our store of perfect Gallic short stories.” — St. Paul 
Dispatch. 

“ The translation is well done. The worth of the story may be judged from 
the fact that a volume of the author’s short stories was crowned by the French 
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“ The tale mingles medievalism and modernity in the happiest way, and 
cannot but please any reader who knows the dreamy impressiveness of the 
old Bavarian capital.” — Edinburgh Scotsman. 

“ The translator has been especially successful in transferring the story to 
the English form, the style of the writing being added to rather than impaired, 
as is so often the case."— Philadelphia Call. 


To provoke the risibilities and promote digestion, try a course of 
A. J. D. BIDDLE’S 

SHANTYTOWN SKETCHES 99 

(Exoellently Bound in Red Silk, with a Striking Cover Design by 
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“ Elocutionists will find here a Klondike.” — St. Paul Dispatch. 


ii 


Drexel Biddle , Philadelphia, 


WORD FOR WORD AND LETTER 
FOR LETTER, 

A BIOGRAPHICAL ROMANCE, 

By A. J. DREXEL BIDDLE. 

WITH 6 RJLL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS BY EDWARD HOLLOWAY. 

Ctcwn 8vo., Cloth, Gilt Top, 208 pp, Price, 75 cents. 

Published in London by GA Y & BIRD, at 22 Bedford Street, Strand. 

THIRD EDITION. 

“ In the year 1888 Mr. George Lefferts Hall, capitalist, of Philadelphia, ex- 
perienced a most peculiar mental condition, which he saw fit to record daily, 
and later publish for private distribution. ‘A publishing friend,’ who received 
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an edition suitable for a public demand be undertaken. Mr. Hall consented, 
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— Minneapolis Tribune. 

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American. 

“ Fascinating in its intensity and unexpectedness.” — Boston Times. 

“ Hypnotism plays an important part in this romance. . . The movement 
is partly in and around Philadelphia, the remainder in the Madeira Isles, and 
a very pretty background has been skillfully furnished, which, together with 
the scenic coloring, is truly delightful. Mr. Biddle is ever to the point and 
sustains throughout the reader’s unflagging interest.” — New York Times. 

“A large circle of readers may be confidently predicted.” — Boston Globe. 
FROM THE BRITISH PRESS. 

“ Under the form of a correspondence, Mr. Biddle has given us an exciting 
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we should hardly be right in disclosing the plot or its denouement. Our 
readers had better find it out for themselves, and they will agree with us that 
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“Of the detective order— a murder and a mystery.”— London Literary 
World. 

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“Highly thrilling.” — London Saturday Review. 

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naeum. 

“ Both interesting and exciting.” — Dundee Advertiser. 


Drexel Biddle, Philadelphia. 

iii 


The following books are published in London by GAY & BIRD , at 22 Bedford 
Street, Strand. 

“ Booksellers will find the following, good books to carry in stock, They have 
already sold largely, and promise to maintain their popularity.”— The Cana- 
dian Bookseller. 

THE FLOWERS OF LIFE, 

By A. J. D. B. 

"Convey, in brief form and simple language, some of the deepest lessons 
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sible not to be impressed with their philosophy. The allegories in particular 
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intended to teach.” — J Pittsburg Times. 

For sale, tastefully and strongly bound in blue, white, yellow and gold doth, 
gilt-top, extra heavy paper, 12mo., pp. 88, for 00 cents, by all booksellers. 

“ Mr. Biddle strikes a lead when he turns to the children. The success of 
his first, 

THE FROGGY FAIRY ROOK, 

(Now in its Third Thousand) 

shows that as a writer for small people he is entitled to consideration. This is 
a rare and rich accomplishment. He has just published a beautiful book of 
fairy tales, 

THE SECOKD FROGGY FAIRY ROOK 

and it will certainly bring joy to thousands of children. The books are ex- 
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“ Anthony J. Drexel Biddle’s ‘ Froggy Fairy Books ’ promise to become as 
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“Elsie Lee is as American as 'Alice in Wonderland’ is English. It is a 
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Scotsman , Edinburgh. 

"... Remarkably clever, and the long-haired young lady who has 
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London Times. 

“A funny book for children, which has obtained a great vogue.”— Tall 
Mall Gazette. 


NEW EDITIONS FOR SALE BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. 


THE FROGGY FAIRY BOOK. With nine beautiful full-page illustra- 
tions by J. R. Skeen. 8vo., cloth. Price, 50 cents; de luxe edition, $1.25. 

THE SECOND FROGGY FAIRY BOOK. Superbly illustrated with 
pen and color full-page and inter-text drawings by well-known artists, printed 
on heavy satin-finished paper, and bound in blue silk cloth stamped in gold, 
silver, and red. A gift-book appropriate for all presentation occasions. Price. 
75 cents. ' 


Drexel Biddle , Philadelphia 


iv 


Iln flmmefciate preparation. 


By A. J. DREXEL BIDDLE, 

FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY, 

A New, Enlarged, and Thoroughly Revised Edition of 

THE MADEIRA ISLANDS. 

To contain nearly fifty full-page illustrations and numerous maps, 
together with additional chapters on the History, the Vine, the 
Wine, and the Flora. 


“ . . . As for the text, suffice it to say that the author tells all that is 

worth knowing about the islands. He has evidently studied them and their 
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in the islands at present he draws a graphic and interesting picture, and al- 
together his book can be recommended, not only to historical students and to 
those who may intend to visit the Madeiras, but also to those who, though un- 
able for various reasons to spend much time in travelling, are yet always 
eager to obtain new information about foreign and little-known countries.”— 
JV. F. Herald. 


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